Mouthpiece Placement

[EmileH]

Hey Trombone Chat,

I’m a tenor trombonist with very large lips. Because I copied the mouthpiece placement of someone with normal sized lips, I ended up with the rim sitting on the flesh of my bottom lip. Recently I was asked to move my placement down a bit, and everyone agreed it sounded much better. Along with this, I’ve started working on flattening my chin.

I have a couple of questions and would love to hear the community’s thoughts.

1. How do I know when my mouthpiece placement is low enough? I’m assuming it’s something I should listen for, but I’m worried my own sense of comfort might bias what I’m hearing.
2. How would you approach an embouchure change like this?

Thank you guys in advance for your feedback!

[Doug Elliott]

I would have to see you play to give any valid advice. In my teaching I use a series of tests to determine where your best placement is likely to be. “Sounding better” is not necessarily the only goal - you want a placement and embouchure mechanics that will be sustainable and trouble free in the long run. That also involves figuring out a mouthpiece size that is going to be sustainable and trouble free.

Most of it has very little relationship to “large lips vs small lips”

[Posaunus]

Strongly recommended - a video session with Doug Elliott. Contact him.

[Vegasbound]

Have a lesson with Doug!

[Wayne]

Another approach (or a complementary one) to getting a lesson to get a solution is to do the work to get fully educated. Fellow TC member Dave Wilken puts out an amazing blog with this section << https://wilktone.com/?page_id=5619 >> intended to give the information about embouchures in a digestible format- a concise version of Reinhardt's Encyclopedia??? That's a good first step to understanding what is being diagnosed and proposed by people with the expertise to help brass embouchure development.

There is a lot more material available free and to buy that can help you become an expert for at least your own embouchure. For my money, it's good to have a feeling of personal control and understanding of things going on with playing so when something is weird one day you have the personal tools to work the problem. That could involve retracing what you have found is the best setting and movement patterns for you or trying wild alternatives for a minute just to see the effect and use that information to fine tune your regular approach. Not knowing or understanding the possibilities and how, when and why they work leads to always needing third party assistance.

Get a lesson for sure to get on the right track, but I would also recommend becoming equipped with as deep a personal understanding as possible. In the end we all need to be our own best teacher.