One solution: try to prevent vertical pressure (mouthpiece versus the lips). Avoid stretching the lips to create more lip tension for higher notes (so to get the strong marks), but creating more lip tension by horizontal lip pressure (thicken the lips, like your arm muscles, thus shorten the vibrating part of the lip, and forming some kind of cushion, to prevent too much pressure by the mouthpiece). Lift the horn from the knie. Do not play that loud. --Hans Pizka
Have you tried lowering the angle of the leadpipe to a more downward angle.? Some players with extreme overbites need to blow at a much steeper angle than those with normal overbites (most of us). If you think of a triangle with the floor being one side, your backbone and head being one the 2nd side and your angle of the pipe becomes the 3rd side, you'll find that you are blowing downward with your pipe aimed just a short distance (maybe 6 inches) in back of the base of your music stand. This should relieve the pressure on your upper lip and leave it free to vibrate as you approach the higher notes. Try not to tighten up but move your air faster while at the same time bringing your lips closer together for the high notes. --Carolyn Blice
When someone tells me that s/he is having problems with playing in the high
range, the first mechanical thing I look for is how the chin is
acting.
Younger players often tend to allow their chins to scrunch up as they ascend
into the high range. It's an unconscious empathetic effort which is a bad
habit that has to be corrected before a player can expect to have great
control over the high range. What happens when the chin scrunches up is the
buzzing aperture closes too much, and the high notes come out sounding
strangled. And usually, the player winds up using more mouthpiece pressure,
again, empathetically. But mouthpiece pressure is not a bad thing, in and of
itself, and is really only a problem when it becomes a substitute for solid
embouchure mechanics. [I, by the way, also have a noticeable "ring" on my
upper lip after playing.] The only time mouthpiece pressure should be of
significant concern is when it is accompanied by chronic lip pain or swelling.
To determine whether your chin is the problem, first look at yourself in a
mirror, and buzz any note without your mouthpiece. Look at the center of your
chin as you buzz. You don't even have to have a particularly good buzz
[without the mpc] to see that your chin is probably "flat" [pointing downward,
as some say] and not "scrunching up." Now, while you're buzzing and looking
at yourself in the mirror, scrunch [push] the center of your chin up. What
happens to the buzz when you do that? It stops, right? That's what happens
inside the mouthpiece if your chin is not properly controlled in high playing.
The aperture closes down, making the notes sound pinched and strangled and
causing endurance problems as well as difficulty playing loudly.
Now, take your horn, and watch yourself in a mirror as you play an ascending
scale slowly up to high C [horn pitch]. The center of your chin should be
flat or pointing downward, not scrunching up. (By the way, picture-perfect
flat chin can be seen in Philip Farkas' "The Art of Horn Playing" and the "Art
of Brass Playing" which I would highly recommend your reading if you haven't
done so recently.) If you try to think of "pulling the center of your chin
down" as you play in the high range, that will keep your buzzing aperture
open. It takes a lot of effort and strength to control the chin, but that is
THE mechanic device for high playing, believe it or not. And if your chin IS
the problem, it will take you several months of practicing in front of a
mirror to break the habit or to strengthen the system to work more effectively
for you.
Presuming that your problem is related to your tooth structure and not your chin, you can try "pushing your jaw forward" a bit as you go into the high range to see if that helps your effort. That might not be totally comfortable, though. But you could try it, and if it works or improves things at all, you might try to think of moving you jaw forward for high playing. But, certainly, any mechanical adjustment you make will take time to train and coordinate. --Cindy Lewis
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