TromboneChat

My tone is just bad. There’s not really a good way to put it. I was wondering, from where I’m at right now, how can I work on improving tone? I know trying to replicate the sound of other trombonists is useful, but when I try to, no matter how I change my embouchure, I just sound meh.

Recording attached (excerpt from “It’s Just a Burning Memory”)

Also, apologies if the google drive link is being weird, but I don’t really have a better way to upload recordings.

IF you want people to listen, make it easy, not hard.

Put it on Youtube or soundcloud or somewhere so we can just click on a link and hear it played and not have to ask for permission.

robcat2075 wrote: ↑Fri Dec 15, 2023 6:37 pm IF you want people to listen, make it easy, not hard.

Put it on Youtube or soundcloud or somewhere so we can just click on a link and hear it played and not have to ask for permission.

Screenshot 2023-12-15 193415.png

My apologies, I really can’t upload it to YouTube or SoundCloud (don’t have a personal google account or SoundCloud account), hence why I attached it as a google file. Should be fixed now, i updated the permissions

You're not putting any air into the horn. That is the sound of mouthpiece buzzing, amplified by the bell. You need a good teacher and lessons.

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Fri Dec 15, 2023 8:38 pm You need a good teacher and lessons.

Also, check the instrument - have someone else play it to see if it sounds the same. If it does, have it repaired or find a different trombone. If it sounds fine, you do need the help of a good teacher, as suggested above.

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Fri Dec 15, 2023 8:38 pm You're not putting any air into the horn. That is the sound of mouthpiece buzzing, amplified by the bell. You need a good teacher and lessons.

Could that be because of my mouthpiece? There’s the tiniest dent at the bottom of my mouthpiece that I’ve had for the longest time. Also, I have a scratch on my slide (from rapid cooling then heating) and a few small dents near the bell area

PiccoloTrombonist1 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 4:53 am
Could that be because of my mouthpiece? There’s the tiniest dent at the bottom of my mouthpiece that I’ve had for the longest time. Also, I have a scratch on my slide (from rapid cooling then heating) and a few small dents near the bell area

Any excuse to avoid work

No. These things affect the top 1% of your sound, not the bottom 99%.

Get some lessons from a good teacher and PRACTICE!!!

BGuttman wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 5:24 am

PiccoloTrombonist1 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 4:53 am
Could that be because of my mouthpiece? There’s the tiniest dent at the bottom of my mouthpiece that I’ve had for the longest time. Also, I have a scratch on my slide (from rapid cooling then heating) and a few small dents near the bell area

Any excuse to avoid work

No. These things affect the top 1% of your sound, not the bottom 99%.

Get some lessons from a good teacher and PRACTICE!!!

Sorry, I meant to qoute Harry M’s post.

That's the typical beginner "cow" sound. I don't think it would take long for a teacher or even an experienced player to get you on the right track.

I mean, OP, you've been accused of being an AI training program a few times already. Are you for real or just clowning on the forum?

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 8:38 am I mean, OP, you've been accused of being an AI training program a few times already. Are you for real or just clowning on the forum?

This seems unfair, and as someone who worked in AI for a couple of decades, I resent it. I think any reasonable contemporary AI would have a Youtube or at least a Google Drive capability. Are you sure you're not a ChatGPT variant yourself? How would you know you're not?

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 8:38 am I mean, OP, you've been accused of being an AI training program a few times already. Are you for real or just clowning on the forum?

I am not in fact an AI. I’m not really sure why I’ve been called an AI, maybe my weird username? I am still a student, and don’t really have a reason to create a google account.

My username is because I originally made this account to ask questions about playing piccolo trombone, which I bought.

I also play tenor as my first and main instrument, which is why i also do ask questions about tenor trombone.

I know lots of my writing might fail an AI check or whatever, but that’s just my style of writing.

Also, an AI wouldn’t generate an audio with noise (you can check for the noise by running the audio through a spectrogram)

ghmerrill wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 9:15 am

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 8:38 am I mean, OP, you've been accused of being an AI training program a few times already. Are you for real or just clowning on the forum?

This seems unfair, and as someone who worked in AI for a couple of decades, I resent it. I think any reasonable contemporary AI would have a Youtube or at least a Google Drive capability. Are you sure you're not a ChatGPT variant yourself? How would you know you're not?

We're all living in a simulation, so all our intelligence is artificial. I can't prove I'm not, anyway.

OP, I believe you that you're not an AI. Your topics of interest have all been unique.

I don't think it's the mouthpiece or any gear related stuff that is the cause of the particular issue you're having with tone. Do you get lessons each week?

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 11:47 am

ghmerrill wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 9:15 am

This seems unfair, and as someone who worked in AI for a couple of decades, I resent it. I think any reasonable contemporary AI would have a Youtube or at least a Google Drive capability. Are you sure you're not a ChatGPT variant yourself? How would you know you're not?

We're all living in a simulation, so all our intelligence is artificial. I can't prove I'm not, anyway.

OP, I believe you that you're not an AI. Your topics of interest have all been unique.

I don't think it's the mouthpiece or any gear related stuff that is the cause of the particular issue you're having with tone. Do you get lessons each week?

I get lessons once a week from on Tuesdays. These lessons come from a professional trombonist who has gigs at weddings. These lessons last 45-60 minutes. We have worked on tone once before, and he gave me some pointers to practice tone. I’ve tried doing them (most of them have been mentioned here, the one that hasn’t is to try holding a piece of paper to a wall with your air, which is the one I do regularly), but most of these exercises are really boring. I try to do them at least 45 minutes a week total, not including holding a paper to a wall. Something happened to my tone since then, which is what is causing me to have, as one user described, a “cow sound”.

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 11:47 am We're all living in a simulation, so all our intelligence is artificial. I can't prove I'm not, anyway.

Beware. That path likely ends in solipism, in which case you have only yourself to talk to.

I once attended a trombone masterclass with Mark Lawrence in Seattle. One of the players played well enough but had a tone that I could only describe as “brown”. For me it really stood out (not in a good way) although I don’t recall any comment about it.

This would be the ideal circumstance for a “one off” with a different teacher. A second opinion. To me a “cow sound” suggests an articulation or tongue/air coordination problem.

Bach5G wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 12:29 pm I once attended a trombone masterclass with Mark Lawrence in Seattle. One of the players played well enough but had a tone that I could only describe as “brown”. For me it really stood out (not in a good way) although I don’t recall any comment about it.

This would be the ideal circumstance for a “one off” with a different teacher. A second opinion. To me a “cow sound” suggests an articulation or tongue/air coordination problem.

Tongue Coordination helps, but in the opposite direction I’m going for. If I make a U shape with my tongue, i have bad sound mixed with red sound. My goal would be yellow sound though, so I’m trying to experiment with other embouchure shapes

I confess that I'm totally lost here with the color-designated sounds: brown, red, yellow. But especially "the cow sound" (particularly since cows make a number of sounds, including bellowing, mooing, snorting, and farting). I am pretty sure I can make at least some of those on my trombones, although mooing is easier on the tuba.

ghmerrill wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 1:05 pm I confess that I'm totally lost here with the color-designated sounds: brown, red, yellow. But especially "the cow sound" (particularly since cows make a number of sounds, including bellowing, mooing, snorting, and farting). I am pretty sure I can make at least some of those on my trombones, although mooing is easier on the tuba.

Cow sound/ brown sound refers to my sound (I’m assuming for brown but that’s the best I can do)

Red sound is a more brassy sound. It’s found in lots of marching band solos and such.

Yellow sound is a more relaxing sort of sound. This video is a sample of yellow sound. I believe it is more common in slower jazz. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8u9P5NS/

The video attached is also my “target sound,” the sound im trying to replicate.

For a good yellow sound, the overtone series is smaller, and it gets extremely quite after the 10th.

For red, I believe it is the opposite, where the overtone series is very large.

My overtone series happens to be very muddy. In spectrograms of yellow sound, I saw that the pitches of the overtone series are very precise, meanwhile in mine, it’s less precise and can be out of tune +- a quartertone

I guess I was off in terms of the meaning of "cow sound". Luckily I don't feel the need to communicate with that terminology or I'd be totally lost in terms of actually playing my trombone. Definitely something missing there about what's often called "intersubjective meaning." Expectations must be adjusted accordingly.

When you talk about making a shape with your tongue, what leaps to mind is: “Get your tongue out of the way!”

PiccoloTrombonist1 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 1:15 pm



Yellow sound is a more relaxing sort of sound. This video is a sample of yellow sound. I believe it is more common in slower jazz. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8u9P5NS/

The video attached is also my “target sound,” the sound im trying to replicate.

I don't want to be elitist or exclusive... but I think you can find much, much better sounds to emulate, even within that style.

PiccoloTrombonist1 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 12:20 pm I try to do them at least 45 minutes a week total

You will need to have the horn on your face for much more time than this. There's no work-around to drilling the muscles to respond efficiently. It takes a lot of time and patience.

And yes, it can be really boring. But boring-ness may also be a symptom of simply not finding enough interesting things to play. I don't just mean book exercises.

This is usually how anyone sound when they start. I agree you need to meet with someone who can be a raw model. It's important to have a lesson and hear and emulate the teachers sound and to be in the same room and listen and compare beats everything else.

What I hear is you are too tense in the area that should vibrate free. I would suggest to NOT tighten your lips that much and start with long tones. Listen to yourself. Also concentrate to hear the pitch first. If you start on first position and play the F or Bb with no tongue, just start with air and no tungue. If you have a piano you can check the pitch first with the piano. Then make sure you have the exact pitch in your head and see if you can back of the mouthpiece enough to make a free sound. Experiment with less air first and then gradually increase your attempts to find just the right flow of air. Not too little and not too much. Do not force the air. Try to find balance and get the feeling of what a clear sound is in your head. I know It's easier said than done, but this sound you get now is very common and is probably how we all started. It's important to move away from but you've got something started and you now gradually need to find the pitch-centre and strive to make it more and more clear. All who developed a good sound did that with experiments while they listned to themself and corrected themself towards the goal. They who hear inside will come closer in time. They who dont't will never. There are many tools. You can play the lips alone, the mouthpiece alone. You can breath deep and just let the air out. Let it be slow warm air. Dont't use force. Then you add the mouthpiece and see how little you need to make that sound, then you increase the mouthpiece sound. See if you can hold a note for five seconds on the mouthpiece, see if you can do ten. It should be an airy relaxed soft sound on the mouthpiece not a pinched sound. Add the full horn. Do just one long note. Try to make it sing. If you take a big breath your built up air will be sufficient by it self to make a relaxed F or Bb. It will give you a first relaxed sound to work on.

/Tom

AndrewMeronek wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 2:47 pm

PiccoloTrombonist1 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 12:20 pm I try to do them at least 45 minutes a week total

You will need to have the horn on your face for much more time than this. There's no work-around to drilling the muscles to respond efficiently. It takes a lot of time and patience.

And yes, it can be really boring. But boring-ness may also be a symptom of simply not finding enough interesting things to play. I don't just mean book exercises.

I do do exercises other than just the 45 minutes a week of tone + private lessons. I normally practice lip slurs, lip bends, false tones, scales, and sightreading. Sometimes I’ll do improv for long periods of time (10 minutes of just playing)

It sounds a little like my son’s playing when he first picked up the horn, to be honest. I can echo what imsevimse wrote. I’m by no means a teacher or expert, but I can say what helped with him was relaxing a bit. He was playing ‘tight lipped’ so to say…which was having a major effect on his tone. The tightness in which we was playing was creating issues with his aperture and not allowing his lips to vibrate naturally…

At the end of the day, it may be worth it to seek another instructor. Not saying the one you are using is bad, it’s just that we all learn differently and a change in teaching style/approach may help make things more clear and lead to better progression because the inverse in terms of teaching is also true.

In 15 minutes on Skype I can fix that easily.

After taking in all of this advice, my biggest problem is the half notes. I tried adding more confidence in my tone which I believe helped. My B in 7th is out of tune, because I can’t reach there, but imo this does have better sound.
My sound is much better as I get higher (middle Bb to High Bb is my best tone, hence why I’m working on lower tone), which after looking at a spectrogram I saw was because somehow I was playing undertones. Tbh I didn’t even know that was possible, i believe this may be what causes my sound to be a bit nasally.

Also, to anyone saying to try a new teacher and stuff like that, they nearest option is some guy who plays guitar and a place 2 hours away. Also, we haven’t worked on tone much, because lots of the time lessons are spent on pieces in my upper range that need working on, and since I have good sound in my upper range, tone was never an issue. I’m practicing lower parts now for 2 reasons: 1, to just get better in general, you can’t really play trombone if you can’t play below Bb3, and because I got a bass trombone part in a band near my, where high schoolers from the county can audition. I got 3rd chair (out of 3), so I’m playing bass

I did some science stuff and found this:
By using a live spectrogram I saw my Bb3-Bb4 octave had no undertones, however F3 (in first) and every note below that had an undertone. I did some research and this normally comes from overblowing. However, overblowing doesn’t really seem to be much of a thing on brass instruments, so I’m not entirely sure. Could this be the cause of my bad sound in lower registers?

PiccoloTrombonist1 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 10:28 am I did some science stuff and found this:
By using a live spectrogram I saw my Bb3-Bb4 octave had no undertones, however F3 (in first) and every note below that had an undertone. I did some research and this normally comes from overblowing. However, overblowing doesn’t really seem to be much of a thing on brass instruments, so I’m not entirely sure. Could this be the cause of my bad sound in lower registers?

Go do this:

Doug Elliott wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 5:01 pm In 15 minutes on Skype I can fix that easily.

OP, you gotta be clownin on us

I don't need science to show why I can't run even 50% as fast as Usain Bolt. You need lessons and to practice, and to get your face in shape

PiccoloTrombonist1 wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 3:30 pm

AndrewMeronek wrote: ↑Sat Dec 16, 2023 2:47 pm You will need to have the horn on your face for much more time than this. There's no work-around to drilling the muscles to respond efficiently. It takes a lot of time and patience.

And yes, it can be really boring. But boring-ness may also be a symptom of simply not finding enough interesting things to play. I don't just mean book exercises.

I do do exercises other than just the 45 minutes a week of tone + private lessons. I normally practice lip slurs, lip bends, false tones, scales, and sightreading. Sometimes I’ll do improv for long periods of time (10 minutes of just playing)

A good goal for time spent in basic terms is an hour per day - or if you add it up, 420 minutes per week.

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 1:26 pm OP, you gotta be clownin on us

I don't need science to show why I can't run even 50% as fast as Usain Bolt. You need lessons and to practice, and to get your face in shape

Ok good point. I was trying to see what in specific makes me sound bad, but ya, that’s a good analogy

Why not stop hypothesizing and posting until you've taken the Skype lesson(s) from Doug Elliott and digested and implemented his suggestions?

Posaunus wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 2:54 pm Why not stop hypothesizing and posting until you've taken the Skype lesson(s) from Doug Elliott and digested and implemented his suggestions?

I personally think it is more interesting to hear what Doug has to say about this (and other good players/teachers) . Usually at this forum the advice (nowdays) is to have a lesson with Doug and from there WE do not learn anything because we are not in that room. I did recommend something. What do you suggest? This is a forum. We should at least be able to discuss, not just recomnend lessons from Doug. As I said: We will not learn anything if we do not discuss and try to help within the forum. Why not do a recording to help him and post here? In this case we have audio. What does those recordings tell? Please use constructive criticism and be positive.

To improve your tone you need to play easier stuff than what you recorded so far. Just a simple Bb flat or F. Start soft and a little creschendo with dimenuendo. Use no tungue. Try the mouthpiece alone first. Do the note
5 times on the mouthpiece and listen. Try to open the sound when you put the mouthpiece in the reciever and do the same again. You may need to experiment with mouthpiece placement. Try to find a placement that gives a more open sound in the horn. It should be an airy sound on the mouthpiece alone.

/Tom

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 1:26 pm OP, you gotta be clownin on us

I don't think so.

Remember that people nowadays who are looking at figuring out whatever tools might help them will probably use AI, and the observation about undertones suggests this. It is not bad. AI like ChatGPT can be great tools as long as we understand what these systems actually are good at and what their weaknesses are.

IMHO.

PiccoloTrombonist1 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 10:28 am I did some science stuff and found this:
By using a live spectrogram I saw my Bb3-Bb4 octave had no undertones, however F3 (in first) and every note below that had an undertone. I did some research and this normally comes from overblowing. However, overblowing doesn’t really seem to be much of a thing on brass instruments, so I’m not entirely sure. Could this be the cause of my bad sound in lower registers?

I'm curious why you ended up digging into doing a spectrogram analysis, and how your conclusion here suggests overblowing. In my experience with teaching (admittedly very little compared to some others here) that for people like yourself who are still figuring out how to physically control the instrument, that this direction in investigation simply isn't all that useful because a spectrogram doesn't tell you anything about what to adjust, physically.

AndrewMeronek wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 5:54 pm

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 1:26 pm OP, you gotta be clownin on us

I don't think so.

Remember that people nowadays who are looking at figuring out whatever tools might help them will probably use AI, and the observation about undertones suggests this. It is not bad. AI like ChatGPT can be great tools as long as we understand what these systems actually are good at and what their weaknesses are.

IMHO.

PiccoloTrombonist1 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 10:28 am I did some science stuff and found this:
By using a live spectrogram I saw my Bb3-Bb4 octave had no undertones, however F3 (in first) and every note below that had an undertone. I did some research and this normally comes from overblowing. However, overblowing doesn’t really seem to be much of a thing on brass instruments, so I’m not entirely sure. Could this be the cause of my bad sound in lower registers?

I'm curious why you ended up digging into doing a spectrogram analysis, and how your conclusion here suggests overblowing. In my experience with teaching (admittedly very little compared to some others here) that for people like yourself who are still figuring out how to physically control the instrument, that this direction in investigation simply isn't all that useful because a spectrogram doesn't tell you anything about what to adjust, physically.

I do use ChatGPT sometimes, but I tend to be wary of it, as it has no experience playing trombone, and will sometimes spout complete nonsense, or give extremely generic advice.

As for looking into the spectrogram, my thought process was “what is the actual difference between my tone and better player’s tone”. By looking at the spectrogram, I saw that my loudest note was not the lowest note, which suggest that I’m either playing a really loud overtone (which if I was, a tuner would think I was playing F when i was playing Bb, which it wasn’t), or I was playing an undertone. I looked into what causes undertones, and Wikipedia stated that on wind instruments, it’s caused by overblowing, which is how I reached that conclusion. By blowing using less air, I just get a shakier sound though, not a better one, and by using more air than I normally do, I do actually play a note that’s overblown, so I believe my original theory of me overblowing is false. Something I did realize is that I produce quite a nasily sound, kind of like talking with your nose plugged. I’m not really sure why this is, but I have lessons on Tuesday, so I plan to look into it then.

AndrewMeronek wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 5:54 pm

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 1:26 pm OP, you gotta be clownin on us

I don't think so.

Remember that people nowadays who are looking at figuring out whatever tools might help them will probably use AI, and the observation about undertones suggests this. It is not bad. AI like ChatGPT can be great tools as long as we understand what these systems actually are good at and what their weaknesses are.

IMHO.

PiccoloTrombonist1 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 10:28 am I did some science stuff and found this:
By using a live spectrogram I saw my Bb3-Bb4 octave had no undertones, however F3 (in first) and every note below that had an undertone. I did some research and this normally comes from overblowing. However, overblowing doesn’t really seem to be much of a thing on brass instruments, so I’m not entirely sure. Could this be the cause of my bad sound in lower registers?

I'm curious why you ended up digging into doing a spectrogram analysis, and how your conclusion here suggests overblowing. In my experience with teaching (admittedly very little compared to some others here) that for people like yourself who are still figuring out how to physically control the instrument, that this direction in investigation simply isn't all that useful because a spectrogram doesn't tell you anything about what to adjust, physically.

AI is terrible if you read there to seek guidence you will not learn. I've given AI some questions about trombone playing just to check and what it does is it gives a general answer that is not totally wrong but also too unspecific to help anyone for real. When you then ask about details in the first answer those answers are all over the place. They can be totally wrong or just partly wrong AI often adds things you have not asked about and that can be correct or NOT but the way it does ths is with great confidence and passion so you think it knows what it's talking about. At the moment AI can not take the place of a good teacher it is real bad.

Now how do we start a student to make a good sound from scratch, which this is about?

/Tom

imsevimse wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 6:12 pm Now how do we start a student to make a good sound from scratch, which this is about?

It comes on its own. You just wait until they have played several years. Meanwhile, you keep them from hearing any real players, otherwise it would discourage them...

At least, that's how I was taught.

PiccoloTrombonist1 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 6:04 pm As for looking into the spectrogram, my thought process was “what is the actual difference between my tone and better player’s tone”. By looking at the spectrogram, I saw that my loudest note was not the lowest note, which suggest that I’m either playing a really loud overtone (which if I was, a tuner would think I was playing F when i was playing Bb, which it wasn’t), or I was playing an undertone. I looked into what causes undertones, and Wikipedia stated that on wind instruments, it’s caused by overblowing, which is how I reached that conclusion. By blowing using less air, I just get a shakier sound though, not a better one, and by using more air than I normally do, I do actually play a note that’s overblown, so I believe my original theory of me overblowing is false. Something I did realize is that I produce quite a nasily sound, kind of like talking with your nose plugged. I’m not really sure why this is, but I have lessons on Tuesday, so I plan to look into it then.

Your are making a lot of assumptions based on the spectral analysis. I can tell you, with 95% certainty and as a giver of private lessons, that the reason for the tone will not be found in the spectral analysis. What I can hear is that your tone production is mostly happening in your lips and inside your mouth. The "resistor" in the system is the lips, in your case. The tone should be produced by pushing the resistor further into the horn. Your need to feel the horn pushing back on you somewhere around the top slide tube. Open up the chops and push air into the horn. Let the horn do it's job.

One way to work on your sound is to get into a big room. Full up the room with sound.

AtomicClock wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 6:45 pm

imsevimse wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 6:12 pm Now how do we start a student to make a good sound from scratch, which this is about?

It comes on its own. You just wait until they have played several years. Meanwhile, you keep them from hearing any real players, otherwise it would discourage them...

At least, that's how I was taught.

I see. No that has nothing to do with teaching. Teaching is done by an experiensed teacher. In the beginning not very experiensed but in time after hundereds of students the teacher might be better. Some teachers are good players which helps, some can not play the instrument they teach. They are in my book not very trustworthy. How good player you need to be to teach? It helps a lot if you have had some problems you have overcome. You need to know the importance of practice. You need to be able to show on your instrument. You need to support your student with guidence. Give suggestions and encourage the student to experiment. You must remember what it was like to be a student yourself.

/Tom

harrisonreed wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 6:55 pm One way to work on your sound is to get into a big room. Full up the room with sound.

One of my instructors when I was in 7th grade and playing saxophone used to continually tell me "fill the horn with air." Alas, I never knew what that meant even though I tried about everything I could think of to do it. Later I came to understand that when I played well I wasn't filling the horn with air at all, and my sound had much more to do with my embouchure and "breath support" (which I suppose could be visualized as my diaphragm doing push-ups -- or bench presses?) Better instructors had better analogies and more specific directions that helped me, and I got better. They even helped me with later picking up the flute -- which I definitely never "filled with air".

I guess my point here is that you can tell a student to go to a room and fill it up with sound. But unless you're there with him/her (even if remotely over an audio/video link), the chance of that having any determinable effect is slim, and may in fact be detrimental-- at least in my experience.

To borrow from others in a somewhat different area, long ago and far away: "First, do no harm."

imsevimse wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 7:07 pm I see. No that has nothing to do with teaching. Teaching is done by an experiensed teacher. In the beginning not very experiensed but in time after hundereds of students the teacher might be better.

While it was the truth, I was trying to express it in humorous fashion. A joke, if you will. I learned to play from my sister's clarinet teacher, a retired band director. By the time I got a real trombonist, my flaws had either corrected themselves, or my compensations were well-developed. I'm now (30 years later) finally uncovering and understanding them.

I recall a story from the old trombone-L days of a fellow having to blow up air mattresses for his kids. He had no trouble filling his horn with air after that.

That always seemed like a silly phrase. The horn is already full of air.

AtomicClock wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 7:53 pm That always seemed like a silly phrase. The horn is already full of air.

Yeah, and then there's all that physics business about standing waves, and such. But why get all confused by that when there's air to be "blown".

imsevimse wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 5:18 pm

Posaunus wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 2:54 pm Why not stop hypothesizing and posting until you've taken the Skype lesson(s) from Doug Elliott and digested and implemented his suggestions?

I personally think it is more interesting to hear what Doug has to say about this (and other good players/teachers) . Usually at this forum the advice (nowdays) is to have a lesson with Doug and from there WE do not learn anything because we are not in that room. I did recommend something. What do you suggest? This is a forum. We should at least be able to discuss, not just recomnend lessons from Doug. As I said: We will not learn anything if we do not discuss and try to help within the forum. Why not do a recording to help him and post here? In this case we have audio. What does those recordings tell? Please use constructive criticism and be positive.

To improve your tone you need to play easier stuff than what you recorded so far. Just a simple Bb flat or F. Start soft and a little creschendo with dimenuendo. Use no tungue. Try the mouthpiece alone first. Do the note
5 times on the mouthpiece and listen. Try to open the sound when you put the mouthpiece in the reciever and do the same again. You may need to experiment with mouthpiece placement. Try to find a placement that gives a more open sound in the horn. It should be an airy sound on the mouthpiece alone.

/Tom

We can "discuss it" forever and never know what actually needs to be changed. I work with what I see.

Doug Elliott wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 10:52 pm

imsevimse wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 5:18 pm

I personally think it is more interesting to hear what Doug has to say about this (and other good players/teachers) . Usually at this forum the advice (nowdays) is to have a lesson with Doug and from there WE do not learn anything because we are not in that room. I did recommend something. What do you suggest? This is a forum. We should at least be able to discuss, not just recomnend lessons from Doug. As I said: We will not learn anything if we do not discuss and try to help within the forum. Why not do a recording to help him and post here? In this case we have audio. What does those recordings tell? Please use constructive criticism and be positive.

To improve your tone you need to play easier stuff than what you recorded so far. Just a simple Bb flat or F. Start soft and a little creschendo with dimenuendo. Use no tungue. Try the mouthpiece alone first. Do the note
5 times on the mouthpiece and listen. Try to open the sound when you put the mouthpiece in the reciever and do the same again. You may need to experiment with mouthpiece placement. Try to find a placement that gives a more open sound in the horn. It should be an airy sound on the mouthpiece alone.

/Tom

We can "discuss it" forever and never know what actually needs to be changed. I work with what I see.

I see. Please OP could you record yourself with video. Try to videotape right infront so we can see your mouth in close-up.

/Tom

PiccoloTrombonist1 wrote: ↑Sun Dec 17, 2023 6:04 pm I looked into what causes undertones, and Wikipedia stated that on wind instruments, it’s caused by overblowing, which is how I reached that conclusion.

FYI: it pays to be careful about defining just what these terms "undertone", "overtone", and related things like "partials" and "harmonics" actually mean. Unfortunately, there isn't really a clear consensus in any of them, unless you seek out a fairly specific physics context - which musicians are generally terrible at.