Embouchure journal

[Burgerbob]

howdy y'all, I thought I'd share a thing that's helped me a lot lately. I am constantly taking two steps forward and then 1-3 steps back in my approach to the instrument- things feel great, and then the next day they don't. I think we can all relate.

Sometime during the pandemic, I had one of these moments, then realized I wasn't doing some small thing I had figured out recently- when I started doing that again, the playing felt like it had the day before. I realized that I had literally JUST figured this thing out the day before and forgotten overnight.

Instead of relying on my dumb brain, I decided to write down these little things as they come up in my practice journal. Now, every time I hit a rough spot, I read through the list and almost always find one or a couple things I had forgotten.

Of course, your list will be different, and mine will change, but here's my example:




Doug, don't judge what I wrote!

[Doug Elliott]

Looks good. I used to do the same thing.

[harrisonreed]

I drew a picture and threw it in my case. Sometimes you just need a reminder before you pull the horn out of what you were doing. I can relate to a lot of what you have in your journal there!

[Geordie]

I write main points in big writing on a single sheet of paper and leave it on the stand as a reminder when I’m practicing.

[MStarke]

I have a few times in my almost 30 years ( ) of playing trombone taken a few notes and normally forgot about them days or weeks later.

Beginning of the year I have started taking online lessons again every 4-6 weeks with a great player and rolemodel and really wanted to get as much out of it as possible.
So I started preparing each lesson with some topics or questions on my end and documenting key points and learnings from each lesson.
Until now this is a few pages of txt file. I hope this will be a good resource to look back from time to time.

[PhilTrombone]

A good idea. I used to write myself similar notes. Really helps to concentrate your future practice sessions and make them more effective.

[baileyman]

I think every day I also try to remember how it felt yesterday when it felt good. Sometimes I cannot remember, but I expect it to show up again. The memory for me is a feel that does not fit well into words, though I do try. By feel I know exactly what it is. By words I'm not so sure.

Whenever some new feel and result shows up, I have a couple buddies I send a note to. The sum of those constitutes a journal, I suppose. The best journal would be for me a record of the feel, but seems impossible.

[Burgerbob]

. The best journal would be for me a record of the feel, but seems impossible.

All of the words in my journal are to evoke a feeling- I totally understand. Sometimes the meaning is lost to me and I have to figure it out again. But since there is no way to document feeling, this is the best I can do!

[Kbiggs]

This looks very much like the stuff I try to remember, too. With my on-and-off practicing during the pandemic, I’ve had difficulty remembering all these things. I will try writing them down to see whether it helps.

I drew a picture and threw it in my case. Sometimes you just need a reminder before you pull the horn out of what you were doing. I can relate to a lot of what you have in your journal there!

I can’t picture what a picture of all the above would look like. Do you have an example?

[harrisonreed]

I can’t picture what a picture of all the above would look like. Do you have an example?

It was a front and side view similar to those embouchure MRI videos. I came to realize that basically the tongue can be the driving force that controls your air, your jaw position, and the size/shape of the oral cavity. So most of the picture is an attempt to remind me just how much of the space my tongue is taking up, and how the back of it is shaped. I don't think it is even 70% accurate.

[Wilktone]

I keep practice journals from time to time. The are useful.

It’s not a bad idea to also record yourself, both video and audio. Recording lessons I’ve taken and going back through them have been very helpful and inspirational.

[afugate]

Thanks for this tip. I've started a similar list on my phone and have included pictures of my chops when I think I'm doing the new things I'm working on properly.

--Andy in OKC

[MTbassbone]

When in a lesson I sometimes would take a few hurried notes, but then later that day rewrite them, sometimes with pictures, so that is was legible. Rewriting it seemed to help drive home some of the principles home too.

[Samdance]

I do this, it is incredibly helpful!

M

[rickfaulknernyc]

Wow - for me, this approach would be paralyzing! I come out of the Arnold Jacobs school, where the focus is on primarily the product, not the process. What works best for me is always having a clear mental picture of the sound I want to achieve, and staying focused on breathing. If I tried to keep my mind on so many different technical things, I wouldn't be able to play. But everybody is different - all that matters is that it works for you.

[Burgerbob]

Wow - for me, this approach would be paralyzing! I come out of the Arnold Jacobs school, where the focus is on primarily the product, not the process. What works best for me is always having a clear mental picture of the sound I want to achieve, and staying focused on breathing. If I tried to keep my mind on so many different technical things, I wouldn't be able to play. But everybody is different - all that matters is that it works for you.

I was lead down that path for a long time, and didn't progress for much of it because my setup just didn't lend itself to "music." Now that I have something closer to a real embouchure, I can have WAY more fun pursuing that musical goal.

I think that Jacobs school can be useful, but only once you can play.

[Doug Elliott]

No one is ever talking about "keeping your mind on so many different technical things."

In spite of preaching "never think the process," in the one Jacobs clinic I attended he ended up telling every student he worked with what to do technically (the process) in order to achieve the improvement he was after when the "sound" approach didn't get there.

[rickfaulknernyc]

I think that Jacobs school can be useful, but only once you can play.

Yeah, you definitely can't approach beginners that way. But even with beginners, his breathing exercises are useful, and I start talking about mental imagery with my private students once I feel they're mature enough to get the concept.

[rickfaulknernyc]

No one is ever talking about "keeping your mind on so many different technical things."

In spite of preaching "never think the process," in the one Jacobs clinic I attended he ended up telling every student he worked with what to do technically (the process) in order to achieve the improvement he was after when the "sound" approach didn't get there.

Interesting. I never got to learn from Jacobs directly, but I studied with Dee Stewart when I was at IU. He would include technical instruction, but only in targeted instances when it was really necessary. Otherwise it was all about breathing, imagery, and focusing on being musical. It revolutionized my playing.

I do know that Jacobs tailored his approach to fit the needs of each student - it's possible that in the master class you saw he felt that was the best approach. He often said that it's the teacher's job to worry about the technical things (and he did in-depth research of the physical side of brass playing), but that the player should focus on the music.

Maybe I misunderstood the intent of the original post - just for me, the less I focus on technical details, the better I play.

[Burgerbob]

I think that Jacobs school can be useful, but only once you can play.

Yeah, you definitely can't approach beginners that way. But even with beginners, his breathing exercises are useful, and I start talking about mental imagery with my private students once I feel they're mature enough to get the concept.

I don't mean beginners. I mean "play." I.e. have an understandimg of how to consistently make a good sound.

[Doug Elliott]

"it's the teacher's job to worry about the technical things"

But when those students become teachers, they never learned how to be that teacher, because all they ever heard was "never think the process."

[rickfaulknernyc]

"it's the teacher's job to worry about the technical things"

But when those students become teachers, they never learned how to be that teacher, because all they ever heard was "never think the process."

Respectfully, I disagree. As I mentioned before, my main teacher was a Jacobs students, and he made me into a MUCH better player than I was when I started with him.

I feel like you may have a misconception of the Jacobs approach. Focusing on product over process is not the same as "never think the process". Jacob's philosophy was simply that the musical goal should always take precedence, and that very often that goal can be obtained better through imagery than through detailed analysis of minute muscle movements. The number of outstanding orchestral players (and brass teachers) who came out of his studio speaks for itself.

But as I said originally, everybody is different, and there isn't one "right" way to teach. As long as the end result is making great music, then whatever road you take to get there is fine. I'm just saying that for me, the Jacobs approach was key in that journey. You do you!

[rickfaulknernyc]

I don't mean beginners. I mean "play." I.e. have an understandimg of how to consistently make a good sound.

Sorry, I didn't phrase that well. I teach a lot of beginners, so that was on my mind - I did understand what you meant.

I will say, though, that I have a lot of success with applying Jacobs' ideas to younger students, once they get past the raw beginner stage. In my experience, the two most important things in developing a good tone are good breathing, and being given good models of what a trombone should sound like - both cornerstones of Jacobs' approach.

Again, this is not to judge anybody else's approach or journey - there's no one-size-fits-all in learning brass instruments.

[Doug Elliott]

I agree with that and I do understand Jacob's approach.

Just don't equate my approach with "keeping your mind on so many different things" because it's not that at all.

[rickfaulknernyc]

I agree with that and I do understand Jacob's approach.

Just don't equate my approach with "keeping your mind on so many different things" because it's not that at all.

Fair enough - and it wasn't my intent to cast aspersions on anyone else's process. Apologies if it came across otherwise.

[Gfactor]

I have kept a daily playing journal since I switched to trombone 3 years ago. Every now and then I write up a summary of my current state of play or what I’ve learned so far. Sometimes this takes the form of a checklist, like the ones I used when I was a pilot. Just recently I feel I have made a significant step change - progress that is!

[AndrewMeronek]

Makes sense to me. Writing in addition to another action (i.e., practicing/feeling chops/etc.) can be a great memory aid. Multiple senses and all that.

I find a similar thing with remembering peoples' names. I'm terrible at it, but it helps to both say their name, and write it down somewhere that I can easily review.

[Wilktone]

I grew up in Chicago and most of my teachers were song & wind advocates. There is a lot of value in what Jacobs taught and how he approached pedagogy. It can be very effective, but they way it gets communicated (or interpreted) is limiting. Personally, I had great teachers who had me focus on "product, not process," but eventually I stalled out as a grad student and needed to get some mechanical instructions that Doug Elliott was able to help me with.

Wow - for me, this approach would be paralyzing! I come out of the Arnold Jacobs school, where the focus is on primarily the product, not the process. What works best for me is always having a clear mental picture of the sound I want to achieve, and staying focused on breathing. If I tried to keep my mind on so many different technical things, I wouldn't be able to play. But everybody is different - all that matters is that it works for you.

Rick, I don't mean to pick on you, but too often we frame this sort of conversation both as a false dichotomy and also end up misrepresenting one side or another.

First, you can (and should) have your attention on sounding good while performing and it's also necessary to practice as we perform. That said, we don't need to do that all the time while practicing and most of us can derive some benefit from simply being aware of playing mechanics and striving to understand them better. Jacobs certainly felt it was useful to understand the physiology of breathing and taught that information to his students. Why is embouchure technique any different?

Secondly, taking the time in a practice session to take some notes about how you're playing and review them is a far cry away from trying to keep your mind on many different things at once while the metal is on the mouth. It's useful to focus on one or two things at a time and then move on after a bit. It's certainly not going to make you freeze up just by writing down some areas of technique, provided you don't try to focus on too many things at once while actually playing the horn.

I think that Jacobs school can be useful, but only once you can play.

I don't think that the chops need to be 100% before song & wind becomes helpful. Personally, I think that it should be a part of every day's practice, just not all of it.

In spite of preaching "never think the process," in the one Jacobs clinic I attended he ended up telling every student he worked with what to do technically (the process) in order to achieve the improvement he was after when the "sound" approach didn't get there.

Based on the clinics I saw Jacobs give, the videos and audios of his workshops, and the books about his pedagogy I think his real genius was in telling musicians how to play while convincing them he wasn't telling them how to play. Moving the focus to something external is usually better than keeping it on the internal process - provided the external focus gets the correct mechanics in place. The drawback to this is that the student doesn't necessarily get the understanding of what the correct technique is in the first place if it's not explicitly discussed.

Maybe I misunderstood the intent of the original post - just for me, the less I focus on technical details, the better I play.

If a student is playing poorly because of analysis there are two main reasons why. First, the student is analyzing things wrong in the first place and leaping to incorrect conclusions. The obvious solution for this is that students need to be taught how to correctly analyze their playing - which is almost never taught when song & wind is the predominant approach. Secondly, the student is trying to do too much at once. Multitasking doesn't make for good playing. The solution here is to teach the student to make only one or two corrections at once, spend a bit of time working only on that correction, and then moving on to other things (including focus on the music).

Doug Elliott wrote: ↑Tue Mar 22, 2022 1:32 pm
"it's the teacher's job to worry about the technical things"

But when those students become teachers, they never learned how to be that teacher, because all they ever heard was "never think the process."
Respectfully, I disagree. As I mentioned before, my main teacher was a Jacobs students, and he made me into a MUCH better player than I was when I started with him.

What did you learn about pedagogy from your main teacher? Did he teach how to analyze a student's breathing, tonguing, embouchure, slide technique, etc.? Did you learn about the difference between explicit (process oriented) and implicit (goal oriented) strategies for developing motor skills and how to combine them for the individual student's needs? Did you cover basic embouchure types and how these different patterns respond differently to the same instruction?

I don't doubt that you picked up much of the above, but in my experience the song & wind advocates are often reluctant to do anything resembling technique analysis. It's unfortunate that many of us need to go out of our way to learn about the above topics because mainstream brass pedagogy (at least in the U.S.) tends to promote a culture of ignorance when it comes to how we play our instruments. We're taught that it's actually bad to ever think about how we play, regardless of when and how that is applied.

Jacobs flat out stated, "I hardly ever consider the embouchure." He felt that a malfunctioning embouchure was simply the result of poor breathing and focus, which is easily disproven. He never demonstrated that he had an accurate understanding of brass embouchure technique. This is not to suggest that his basic approach is bad, it's just incomplete - particularly when it comes to how to address and teach embouchure technique. Ignoring embouchure technique rarely makes the problem go away on its own, but it can be pretty good at covering up issues. Until things break down. A lot of the players who contact me for help with their chops got good at covering up their issues with song & wind. I certainly had back when I took my first lesson with Doug.

Dave

[rickfaulknernyc]

Rick, I don't mean to pick on you, but too often we frame this sort of conversation both as a false dichotomy and also end up misrepresenting one side or another.

I agree. To be honest, if I could delete my original comment I would. My intent wasn't to set up a dichotomy, but I can see that it could come across that way. If I'd known it would spark so much controversy, I'd have held my tongue.

Just to clear the air:
1) My initial post was intended to be a comment on myself, not on the methodology. I know myself well enough to know that if I kept a detailed list like that, I WOULD try to think about too many things at once, and send myself down a rabbit hole. Clearly it's beneficial for the OP, and I didn't mean to imply otherwise.
2) The Jacobs approach has been immensely beneficial to me, so of course I'm a fan of it, and draw from it in my own teaching. That's not to say I feel other methodologies aren't valid, or that I haven't benefited from other approaches at one time or another over the years.

As I've said before in this thread, as long as you're making great music, it doesn't matter what route gets you to that point. To quote Sly Stone, different strokes for different folks!

[Wilktone]

Thanks for the clarification, Rick. I appreciate your open mindedness and willingness to engage in some give and take.

If I'd known it would spark so much controversy, I'd have held my tongue.

Nah, I'm happy you did. A little controversy can be healthy. It's good to look at things differently from time to time. Especially when we're happy with the status quo.

I know myself well enough to know that if I kept a detailed list like that, I WOULD try to think about too many things at once, and send myself down a rabbit hole.

As I alluded to earlier, I think that we can combat this by learning how to focus. Thinking about the end goal is great, nothing wrong with it and it's valuable to practice. That said, we can train ourselves to also focus on one or two elements of the process as we practice too. Like many things, it takes practice to be able to keep our attention on that one thing and not get bogged down in too many details, but I feel it's worth exploring.

Dave

[rickfaulknernyc]

As I alluded to earlier, I think that we can combat this by learning how to focus. Thinking about the end goal is great, nothing wrong with it and it's valuable to practice. That said, we can train ourselves to also focus on one or two elements of the process as we practice too. Like many things, it takes practice to be able to keep our attention on that one thing and not get bogged down in too many details, but I feel it's worth exploring.

Agreed - and I do that sometimes. But most of the time, the best thing I can do to quiet my mind and focus is to concentrate on my breathing and the sound I'm making. At 30+ years into my career, I know that that's what works for me.

[Wilktone]

Agreed - and I do that sometimes. But most of the time, the best thing I can do to quiet my mind and focus is to concentrate on my breathing and the sound I'm making. At 30+ years into my career, I know that that's what works for me.

Sure!

But how much different is it to quiet your mind and focus on your horn angle and the resulting sound you make? Or posture? Or slide grip? Or setting the mouth corners? etc.

Yes, breathing and sound works. My point isn't to dismiss that, but to offer other thoughts on how one can work on playing mechanics that directly target specific details of technique. From a focus standpoint, I don't see that working on something like mouth corner position temporarily is any different from putting your concentration on the breathing. It's just a different point of focus is all. Would you agree?

Of course part of the process here is to identify specific goals first. That involves some analysis and perhaps a background in studying the process of good instrumental technique that we usually don't get when it's mostly song & wind. Consider hooking up with Doug Elliott for a video lesson (or better still, in person) and get him to give you a lesson focused on pedagogy. You might be surprised at some of the details that he can tease out in your own playing too.

Dave

[harrisonreed]

I'm learning more and more that the equipment is sort of the lynch pin in the system. I still focus a lot of my thought on how my embouchure is functioning when I play, but now that I have my gear set up correctly I don't have to do anything weird with my embouchure or air. There is basically only one way to play that works and feels right, and the mouthpiece (the instrument too) sort of forces me to default to that way of playing. I'm left to shift my focus to the end product because I can't find anything to nitpick in the mechanics.

This is probably a very unpopular view, but I think most players struggling with consistency day to day or the mechanics of playing are just playing gear that is working against them. Not just rims and cups -- the whole airflow has to be right. So the rest of the horn, too. I started caring about gear about 7 years ago. Incremental changes to stuff over seven years is what it took me. I have a few things left I want to try, but they aren't really that important anymore.

I think the key though, is that my understanding of how my playing mechanics work best evolved alongside the gear evolution. Every time something worked better, I had to take a step back and understand why. In every case it wasn't "oh this is just better". It was more like, "ah, I'm able to keep my jaw in a more natural position, or my lips slightly more apart and still get the same or a better sound," etc.

I've found: 1) The rim ID is what lets your embouchure function naturally without the mouthpiece physically shifting on your face. Every adult player should get this size locked in as early as possible. 2) The slide width has a huge impact on how the mouthpiece hits your face. I use a rounder rim on my 3B because of this. 3) the cup depth affects how spread out your chops can be, even if the rim ID is the same. 4) The throat of the mouthpiece has an effect on how relaxed/spread your chops can be. With a tight throat (so efficient right?) Your chops have to be held in position with more tension to keep faster air going into the horn and not out through your corners. A larger throat can take a ton of air, and your corners do not have to be ironclad. 5) Counterweights, bracing, and the bell itself (especially the treatment of the edge of the flare) effect the resistance of the system. If you have everything above set and you understand what is going on, this is the next level tool. Top pros look like it's effortless because they put in the work, have gear tailored to their approach, and THEN built a horn to suit it and suit their section.

It's been said that the best players of times past, especially trumpeters, were the ones whose faces were predisposed to function well on the gear their teachers pushed on them. The same is true of trombonists. We are so lucky today that the gear is so good and so easily customized. And look, every trombone player around in every orchestra or jazz band would have been among the best trombone players on the planet in 1950.

BLUF, you can keep an embouchure journal until the cows come home but you must also make decisions based on your findings, and that includes deliberate gear decisions in addition to changes to your approach. If you need it to remember how to set up your face every day, even though you play every day, something is going on wrong with your gear.

[VJOFan]

I'm learning more and more that the equipment is sort of the lynch pin in the system.

Thirty or so years ago I would have scoffed at this idea. In my undergrad I was firmly in the camp of "just play!"

Three things moved me closer to what Harrison says above.

At grad school we had monthly masterclasses. In one of these a senior tuba student got frustrated hearing me sizzle out in loud passages and pretty much yelled at me to stop playing that damn ____________ and get a ________ so I wouldn't have so much trouble with the big passages.

That didn't resonate until thing two happened. I had my car stolen with all my stuff, including my two trombones, two weeks out from an orchestra audition. One of the teachers at my university was kind enough to build me a frankenhorn from spare parts he had lying around so I could do the fall school and pro auditions while I put the pieces of my life back together. That horn is still the most amazing thing I have ever played. With it, I got through to the finals of the audition and eventually was offered the job.

Thing three was in two parts. I bought a horn of the brand "recommended" by my tuba friend from the masterclass before heading to my job. It was good, but I wanted to get back to "frankenhorn" so eventually I got fitted at a factory.

That factory fit horn taught me more about playing in my first year with it, than practicing the year before had. The thing is that even on other horns now, I can find the playing habits I established on the custom horn.

So, anecdotally to me, there is definitely something to be said for equipment shaping the way you play.