Quote from: BGuttman on Mar 17, 2017, 06:46AMThe constant "new mouthpiece" is a bad idea. You wind up like the trumpet players with a passel of mouthpieces trying to select the one that best covers a particular part. I can just see it. You ask the conductor to stop the ensemble while you swap mouthpieces for a particular note
Emory Remington discovered that more resistance makes the upper partials easier to play (maybe he got his idea from the French Horn). So his "Security in the Upper Register" exercise starts in 7th position where the partial that includes high Bb is easier to find (it's E) and works to shorter and shorter horns. You suddenly find that you can't hit the note in that partial, so you try to use the lip compression that seemed to work a half step lower. Others use a gliss from 7 to 1 on that partial.
Denis Wick (Trombone Technique) talks about a smaller aperture for higher notes and a larger aperture for lower notes.
I've also read somewhere (maybe Fink "Trombonist's Handbook") that lowest notes are blown straight to the aperture of the mouthpiece while higher notes are bounced off the wall of the cup. The higher the note, the closer you "bounce" toward your lips.
Fact remains that increasing range is not an overnight exercise; it takes time and effort.
Only a fool would advocate swapping mpcs to THAT freakish extent!
![Image](http://tromboneforum.org/Smileys/otjf/evil.gif)
However, I have heard the stories about swapping out in the middle of a solo. Hey. Whatever works, but that's an extreme approach to say the very least.
I believe that control over the size/shape of the aperture to be MUCH more productive than gyrating the horn all around on the chops.
I've seen the posts where there have been claims of gaining a fifth or so literally overnight. The only scenario I can see for those claims were some fundamental flaw corrected and/or the original "high" note wasn't very high at all to begin with. It doesn't stretch my imagination very much to think of a beginning straight tenor student "stuck" on D above the staff to suddenly be instructed to blow a nice F above the staff. But going from a nice high C to a nice high F always - yes always - takes some real patience and effort.
...Geezer