Mouthpiece Pressure

[tbdana]

I was just reading a small debate about mouthpiece pressure in the "Lip Slurs" thread and wanted to talk about it but not derail that thread.

For me, personally, I play better the less mouthpiece pressure I use. I use only enough pressure to get a seal. In fact, I will randomly just back off until I'm barely touching the rim and can hear the buzzing, and then apply only that amount of pressure that will create the seal and stop the buzzing sound. That's the position I play best. I chose this approach after years of mashing the mouthpiece into my face to play high notes. That was a crutch and a disease, and backing off all pressure that wasn't necessary for a seal was the cure for me.

Some are advocating for using mouthpiece pressure. That doesn't work for me. I remember Bill Watrous talking about how his father made him suspend his horn from strings and play without touching anything but lips to mouthpiece.

Without using any pressure there's no need to "reset" your embouchure for any range, you can play from pedal F to double Bb without changing anything.

I'm of the opinion that what works for one person doesn't necessarily work for others, so I don't expect everyone to agree. But it seems to me that at its purest form, it's all about the lips, and pressure on the mouthpiece just limits what the chops can do.

What's your take on mouthpiece pressure?

[Neo Bri]

How does that work at FF?

[Jmloudon]

Before COVID layoffs, I was a minimal pressure guy. After COVID layoffs, I needed more pressure to figure out how to set my embouchure again.

I think I’m probably using the same amount of pressure I was before, but what I’m thinking about as I set is different. If I run in to issues making a connection, I’m now open to it being not enough pressure as one possible issue, but it’s subtle. Very subtle…

[Doug Elliott]

I would never suggest mashing or using excessive pressure.
But there's no way you can play loud or use hard articulations without adding "more" pressure than "minimal."

I see far more problems due to too little pressure than too much. Too much pressure is a symptom of other problems.

[Kbiggs]

What Doug said.

Watrous is a special case. Although he could, he rarely played loud. He played softly, and into a mic. That’s partly how he got his sound.

I also have a suspicion that it’s easier to play softly and with less pressure with smaller equipment, if the equipment works for you. (It’s been a LONG time since I played a small-bore horn.)

[tbdana]

I play a Lindberg sterling silver 88H with a Marcinkiewicz Byron Peebles mouthpiece most of the time. My small bore axe is a 16M that I play with an 11C mouthpiece. No one will ever accuse me of playing too softly. LOL! I don't even understand the comments about not being able to play loud with only enough pressure to get a seal on the mouthpiece.

[tbdana]

How does that work at FF?

Fine thanks.

[tbdana]

...there's no way you can play loud or use hard articulations without adding "more" pressure than "minimal."

Well, that ain't true for me, at least. I can't and won't pretend to speak for others. But I can certainly be heard in the loudest orchestras and the screamingest (my own word! ) big bands. No one has ever complained that I play too softly. And your comment about articulations just confuses me. I can't for the life of me understand why you need more pressure to do hard articulations.

Personally, I find that using only enough pressure to make a seal preserves my chops and I don't have to reset my embouchure to go from the lowest to the highest notes. Of course, as with everything on the trombone, learning to do it takes conditioning and practice.

I don't play loud all the time. But I can when I want to. (And in live performance situations, I often want to. )

I started this thread because I wanted to hear from people like you, because I actually find it odd to hear folks advocating for more mouthpiece pressure. I want to hear all about this because I'm always looking for things that work better than what I'm doing now.

[tbdana]

Watrous is a special case. Although he could, he rarely played loud. He played softly, and into a mic. That’s partly how he got his sound.

Watrous was a special case in many ways. LOL! I can say that because he was a dear friend for many years. Frankly, his insistence on burying a mic deep into his bell drove me nuts, as I think it only hurt his sound. He had a beautiful natural sound that was muddied and destroyed by his habit of swallowing mics. But the important part of your post was the phrase, "Although he could," play loud. Yes. You can play loud without using more mouthpiece pressure than it takes to maintain a seal.

I also have a suspicion that it’s easier to play softly and with less pressure with smaller equipment, if the equipment works for you. (It’s been a LONG time since I played a small-bore horn.)

Could be, I dunno. Most of my playing these days is on a Lindberg 88H with a thick sterling silver bell using a Marcinkiewicz Byron Peebles mouthpiece, and I usually play principal or first trombone on it. On that equipment I can play very loudly. Oddly, perhaps, when I play my 16M with the 11C mouthpiece, that's when I find I have to back off and put much less air through the horn lest I overplay it. So maybe there is an equipment factor, but I'm not sure that smaller is better. I don't know why I have that experience with smaller equipment, I just do.

But I'm open to hearing other ideas, which is why I started this thread.

[Doug Elliott]

I want you try something.
Have someone else hold your horn to your face - let go completely - and see how much pressure they think you're using. Move your slide, play some range and articulations, but DON'T support the horn, let the other person do that entirely.
Report back here.

[tbdana]

I want you try something.
Have someone else hold your horn to your face - let go completely - and see how much pressure they think you're using. Move your slide, play some range and articulations, but DON'T support the horn, let the other person do that entirely.
Report back here.

Oh, it's not some illusion. I'm not thinking I'm doing something I'm not. It's a very mindful practice. And yeah, in the past I've done the whole stupid dangling from strings thing. Fine for demonstration purposes, and it really informs you about range. Let me not mislead you though. It's not about no pressure at all. You need some pressure to make a seal. That's how much I use, enough to make a seal. No more, no less.

Please tell me why using more pressure is better. I'm very interested to hear. I'll probably try it. Whether I adopt it or not depends on whether or not it works better for me. I've been playing the way I do now since the early 80s, but I'm such an old dog that I'm not interested in new tricks.

[Doug Elliott]

You're not taking me seriously, but I'm very serious. I want to know a different person's impression of how much pressure YOU actually use.

I do that when I'm teaching in person (which isn't much at this point, it's all online). I hold the student's horn to see how much pressure they're actually using, and I have them hold my horn so they can see how much I use.

Please tell me why using more pressure is better.

More than what?
More than "not enough" is always better. And you already got confirmation from the OP of the other thread that I was right:

Doug's advice regarding the mouthpiece pressure was solid. In my lesson with him last month, he gave me a lot of valuable information. Mouthpiece pressure is the one thing I forgot about. So when I tried lip slurs again yesterday with more pressure, it definitely made things easier. Still a lot to work on of course, but another piece of the puzzle has locked into place.

By the way, how much pressure do you think I use? Have you even heard me play?

I'd like to hear what you sound like - how about posting a video?

[Neo Bri]

How does that work at FF?

Fine thanks.

I was afraid my question would be taken sarcastically or snarkily, but that's not really how I meant it. I just know that a strong seal is essential when playing louder, so I wanted to know how you could do it. Ordinarily a lot of air pressure coming from a lot of air being pushed through the horn needs more pressure to keep the seal at the very least.

[Neo Bri]

...there's no way you can play loud or use hard articulations without adding "more" pressure than "minimal."

And your comment about articulations just confuses me. I can't for the life of me understand why you need more pressure to do hard articulations.

I think one of the ideas of the articulation thing is that articulations create what are essentially plosives, so the harder the articulation, the harder the plosive, and the bigger the delta between the articulation and the sustained note. So it would require more pressure to buttress against that sudden pressure.

[harrisonreed]

Without using any pressure there's no need to "reset" your embouchure for any range, you can play from pedal F to double Bb without changing anything.

I'd like to see that.

[Wilktone]

Without watching you play, tbdana, my best guess is that you're using a lot more mouthpiece pressure than you think. Check out this article.

Science Proves Musical Myths Wrong

There are some takeaways from that article that help me make my above guess.

"...the forces used for particularly loud or high notes, especially in the professional group, amazed us."

They first thought their equipment was malfunctioning when they saw the amount of mouthpiece pressure the professional trumpet players used.

"This result implies that while they [the professional teachers] could judge the relative forces used by an individual pupil, they would probably not be able to say which pupils used high levels of force and which used low."

"We found that both expert and nonexpert players tended to believe that they were using a wider range of forces than they actually did. . . They generally believed that they used less force than they actually did.

It turns out that we're terrible judges of how much mouthpiece pressure is being used, not only with our students but also for ourselves.

"Our failure to demonstrate any clear differences between experts and nonexperts with respect to subjective judgements of how much force these groups used on the mouthpiece shows the extent to which skilled performers can be unaware of fundamental aspects of their own performance."

So you'll have to forgive me if I doubt you, tbdana.

And your comment about articulations just confuses me.

The phenomenon here is that if you ask someone to play a passage with hard articulations while they aren't using sufficient mouthpiece pressure they will noticeably struggle or start to add more pressure. If you take an overtone series flexibility study, for example, and ask a student to play it staccato first then slurred on the same breath it helps the student apply a sufficient amount of mouthpiece pressure for the slurs. But if you take that same student and have them play legato first and then staccato on the same breath the staccato either breaks down or they end up using more pressure to play staccato.

In your case, tbdana, I'd suspect that the reason it's confusing to you is because you're using an appropriate amount of pressure already, so you're not noticing any difference between slurs and hard articulation. Again, you're probably using more mouthpiece pressure than you realize. Try Doug's experiment of having someone hold your horn for you while you play.

I remember Bill Watrous talking about how his father made him suspend his horn from strings and play without touching anything but lips to mouthpiece.

Maybe that happened, but you would think that if this exercise was truly possible that we'd be seeing videos on YouTube of players doing this trick by now. I've tried and there is video of me on YouTube messing around with this, but it sound terrible. I want to hear someone do this and play with a focused and resonant tone, otherwise it's just free buzzing into the instrument and not really doing anything that resembles actual performing.

But with the understanding that we can't be accurate by eyeballing someone playing, we can take a close look at Watrous's embouchure in the below video. It sure looks as if he is using a fair amount of mouthpiece pressure to me. What do you think?

I would never suggest mashing or using excessive pressure.
But there's no way you can play loud or use hard articulations without adding "more" pressure than "minimal."

I see far more problems due to too little pressure than too much. Too much pressure is a symptom of other problems.

Full disclosure, I've been taking lessons with Doug since 1997, so I'm probably biased. That said, what he wrote here mirrors my experience. I haven't accurately measured the force my students are using, but my impression is that when mouthpiece pressure is too much it's generally because their is a fundamental flaw in their embouchure technique that encourages them to use more pressure than they need. Fix their chops and the pressure goes away on its own.

The other impression I have is that some students could be using an appropriate amount of mouthpiece pressure, but it seems excessive because they aren't firming the embouchure formation enough to start with. I particularly see this when some brass musicians play in their lower register. When the embouchure is firmed appropriately our lips are quite capable of accepting the normal amount of mouthpiece pressure. When the lips are held too loose then it risks damage and just doesn't work as well.


Dave