Trombonist Rich Hanks studied from a long term former student of Donald Reinhardt’s, Dave Sheetz. He recently has launched a new web site to archive Reinhardt’s exercises, instructions, photos, audio recordings, and more. Here’s what Rich says about it.
I’m thrilled to announce the Reinhardt Archive (reinhardtarchive.com)— the largest digital collection of Donald S. Reinhardt’s materials ever assembled in one place.
For decades, Doc Reinhardt’s extraordinary body of work — his books, private teaching notes, unpublished lesson handouts, audio recordings of lessons and masterclasses, and the scholarly research his pedagogy inspired — has been scattered across personal collections, university libraries, and fading memories. Until now.
We’ve built a free, searchable, living archive to preserve this legacy and make it accessible to brass players, teachers, and researchers everywhere.
What’s inside:
Books, private study notes, and unpublished lesson handouts — digitized, OCR-processed, and fully searchable.
Audio recordings of actual lessons and masterclasses — with transcripts and timestamped segment navigation so you can find exactly the moment Doc explains a concept.
Doc’s written words come to life with “In Doc’s Words”, a series of avatar videos using Doc’s original wording to explain the key points of the pivot system.
A growing photo gallery from Doc’s life and teaching career, updated and enhanced with cutting edge technology.
Academic dissertations and second-order research from students and scholars But this isn’t just a file cabinet. It’s a research platform.
AI-powered chat — Ask questions in plain English and get answers synthesized across the entire archive, with citations linking back to the exact source passages. Ask “How does Reinhardt’s pivot system work?” and get a grounded answer drawing from multiple documents.
Knowledge graph — Explore a visual, interactive map of concepts, techniques, people, and their relationships across the entire body of work. See how the Pivot System connects to airstream direction, embouchure types, and pedagogical lineage.
Concept index — Browse a structured index of every concept, person, and technique mentioned across the archive, with linked evidence from source materials.
AI-generated articles — Curated deep-dives that surface interesting observations and connections from the archive, with linked citations to original sources.
Personal collections — Save documents, audio, video, and concepts to your own research lists for later reference.
Community forum — Discuss the materials with fellow brass players, students, and researchers. Full citation tools — Every source includes copy-to-clipboard citations and BibTeX export for academic work.
Who is this for?
Whether you’re a professional brass player who studied with Reinhardt himself, or with one of Reinhardt’s students, a college student encountering the Pivot System for the first time, a teacher looking for pedagogical insights, or a researcher writing about brass embouchure pedagogy — this archive was built for you. Even if you’re simply curious about one of the most systematic and original thinkers in brass playing history, there’s something here.
We need your help, too. We are actively seeking materials from the community — lesson notes, recordings, scans, and scholarly work — to grow this collection. If you have something to contribute, we’d love to hear from you.
The homepage is open to browse without an account. Create a free account to access the full archive, chat, and community features.
Hope to see you there!
There’s quite a bit already uploaded and Rich says he’s working to add more as he goes. Go check it out.
I recently came across an older “guest blog” post from 2019 in the International Journal of Music. Written by trumpet teacher Clint McLaughlin, the post is titled, “The Effects of Using the Cheek Muscles vs. the Chin Muscles When Playing the Trumpet.” His post discusses his study of what muscles trumpet players activate and compares players who use a “smile embouchure” versus a “frown embouchure.” Using a thermal infrared camera, decibel meter, and spectrum analyzer, McLaughlin found that the players who used cheek muscles (specifically the Zygomaticus Major, Buccinator, and Risorius muscles) had weaker range and resonance compared to players who relied more on muscles around the mouth corners (specifically the Depressor Labii Inferioris and Depressor Anguli Oris muscles).
The results aren’t very surprising, I think. While at one time it may have been common for brass teachers to instruct students to ascend by drawing their mouth corners back (often referred to as a “smile embouchure”), this notion is very much in the minority today. In fact, I would be hard pressed to find qualified brass teachers who actually teach a smile embouchure now. It’s not too hard to find brass musicians who do have a smile embouchure, however it’s pretty universally acknowledged that this causes range and endurance issues.
McLaughlin’s takeaway advice is for trumpet players to utilize what he refers to as a “frown embouchure,” I guess to distinguish it differently from the smile embouchure.
Notably, the findings indicated that players employing the frown embouchure exhibited superior range and resonance compared to their smile embouchure counterparts. The thermal images and corresponding analyses revealed that the muscle activity within 1.5 cm of the lips and around the chin was crucial for optimal trumpet performance. The frown players consistently demonstrated a more robust harmonic presence, with some exhibiting up to 13 strong upper harmonics, underscoring the effectiveness of this embouchure in achieving a resonant and powerful sound.
During the warm up of trumpet players, face muscle contractions with increased blood flow result in a higher temperature of the overlying skin. This effect can be visualized and quantified by infraredthermography. The analysis demonstrates that the main facial muscle activity during warm up is restricted to only a few muscle groups (M.orbicularis oris, M.depressor anguli oris). The “trumpeter’s muscle” (M.buccinator) proved to be of minor importance. Less trained players expressed a more inhomogenous thermographic pattern compared to well-trained musicians. Infrared thermography could become a useful tool for documentation of musicians playing technique.
Since McLaughlin’s study essentially replicates Bertsch’s paper I feel that the muscle activity in the trumpet embouchure is pretty well established to be better focused on the area around the mouth corners and not in the cheeks. Where I deviate from McLaughlin isn’t so much in the findings, but in the specific term he uses for his recommendations, “frown embouchure.”
That might be more of a minor quibble. I prefer to describe the best position of the mouth corners when playing brass to be more or less where they are when they are at rest. We certainly don’t want to pull them back as if smiling, but I don’t believe that pulling them down into a frown position is best either. While it may help players prevent their mouth corners from being drawn back to think about frowning instead, I don’t really find pulling the mouth corners down to be correct. The muscles at the mouth corners do need to be engaged, but I don’t want my students to pull them down out of their position.
Taken together, both McLaughlin’s blog post and Bertsch’s paper also show the potential for using infrared photography as a valuable tool for studying muscular effort while performing musical tasks. Bertsch has even taken this idea further, looking at the entire bodies of a violinist, saxophonist, and trombonist to see what muscles were activate to perform.
In addition to the description of effective embouchure technique as a “frown embouchure” I do have some other criticisms about McLaughlin’s writeup of his research, however I don’t think that these invalidate the data he presents. These arguments are simply standard points that anyone who has engaged in serious academic or scientific research would probably also raise. That’s not to say that McLaughlin’s research isn’t interesting or useful. Some of my disappointment may be more related to the policies and publishing practices of the International Journal of Music.
I’ll start with that point. It’s difficult to find more information about the International Journal of Music’s publishing policies. Their editorial board seems solid, but I can’t find any information about their peer reviewers. Their editorial policy does mention “rigorous peer review for research-oriented content” but doesn’t note who their reviewers are (just their editors), whether the reviews are blinded, or how they label peer reviewed content compared to non-reviewed content. I think the $360 publication fee for an open-access article there is a bit much for an online journal that specifically seems to cater to a general audience. An average to purchase your own domain name and host a web site of your own for a year is about $150 if you’re just interested in getting your ideas out there, so you’re just paying extra to be associated with the IJM. Peer reviewers are volunteers, not paid staff, so while I don’t think the IJM is a predatory journal, I’m not sure how seriously they should be taken by scholars.
I suspect that the vast majority of articles published in the International Journal of Music are not peer reviewed and McLaughlin’s post (more on this below) probably would not be accepted for publication as peer-reviewed, such as in the (not to be confused with) International Journal of Music Education. In my opinion, naming their journal so close to the more serious scholarly resource was a bit sneaky. Maybe they didn’t really consider the confusion that could result with such similar names to be an issue, but the International Journal of Music Education is one of the gold standard publications of music research. The International Journal of Music, however, is much less so.
As best as I can tell, authors who publish in the International Journal of Music are qualified musicians, but a large portion of the articles (at least the ones accessible without a subscription) are “fluff” pieces, like interviews, obituaries, or other non-academic works written for a general audience. McLaughlin’s writeup there is described specifically as a “guest blog,” not really an article. Brevard College doesn’t have a subscription to the IJM, so I can’t go deeper without paying a subscription fee personally, and I don’t really think that it would be worth it for my purposes, so take my criticism here with a grain of salt. The articles behind the paywall may be very well researched and written. They do have ads on their site and also have links for marketing opportunities, which aren’t really a red flag for non-peer reviewed journals (they have to offset their costs somehow), but peer reviewed journals typically do not include ads unless they are for professional conferences or organizations, not products.
More specifically to McLaughlin’s post, I think he wrote up what he wanted to and what the editorial staff asked him for, but nothing more. A publication in a peer reviewed journal would have required a literature review and much more information about McLaughlin’s methodology. Since McLaughlin is essentially replicating earlier research a scholar would want to know this before citing or drawing conclusions. A thorough literature review also shows that McLaughlin is aware of the current consensus among experts in this topic, isn’t reinventing the wheel, and is addressing criticisms and concerns that often come up when different researchers look at similar topics in different ways. A detailed report on the methodology also helps scholars to bring appropriate weight to the findings. For example, McLaughlin’s writeup includes data from 5 test subjects, but we don’t know for sure if those are the only subjects or if they are a small subset. 5 test subjects is not enough to come to any statistical significance, even if the results are consistent with consensus. More data should also be presented in the writeup so that the reader understands how typical the examples are. It’s not necessary to include all the raw data from every test subject in an academic paper, but enough should be presented so that a scholar understands how typical the presented examples actually are. For all we know, those examples may have been cherry picked to demonstrate McLaughlin’s preconceived ideas. When conducting studies like this the researcher should be testing the null-hypothesis, gathering up enough evidence to prove that a real effect is actually present. In other words, you try to find evidence against what you expect to find and if you can’t, you’re on to something.
My last criticism about McLaughlin’s writeup has to do with the photographs he uses in his post. While he does helpfully label the specific areas of the face in the infrared photos, the view does not provide good context to see exactly where the muscles were activated or show other areas around the face that might also be related. Compare an example of McLaughlin’s photographs…
… to photos published in Bertsch’s paper.
Bertsch’s photos provide much better context. There may be a good reason why McLaughlin needed to photograph his subjects so close to the face (and they were playing trumpet at the time, I believe, so that is one difference), but if you’re comparing the muscles around the mouth corners to the muscles around the cheeks a better view would include the area around the mouth corners, rather than cropping them out. Bertsch’s data shows whether or not the muscles at the chin are activated as well and while the performers are not actually playing. Taken as a whole photos of the entire embouchure area both while playing and while at rest might provide evidence for or against whether the player is actually “frowning.”
If dwelling on the negative above seems like I’m against the IJM or McLaughlin’s research I want to again state that I think the blog post is very good. It offers further evidence for what the general consensus already states and is presented in a way that makes this information more accessible to non-academics. Heck, all my criticisms here apply to pretty much everything I post here! I guess I mainly am bothered by the veneer of a scholarly article in an academic journal that is really more focused on a general audience.
Update: After I made this post this morning I had a thought to poke around on Clint McLaughlin’s web site and sure enough, he has a more detailed writeup of his experiment over there. His discussion over there addresses some of my quibbles that I made above and has even more examples, including video, that you can look at. If this is a topic that interests you, I highly recommend you go to McLaughlin’s web page, Thermal Imaging And Spectrum Analysis Study Of Trumpet Players.
Is there a “secret” to playing high notes on a brass instrument?
According to this video, it’s got something to do with the teeth and lips, but he’s not very clear on what he means. He talks about if you imagine the air passing over the tongue it hits the back of the teeth and then on the lips it forms a “thick” air stream. But we need a “thin” air stream to play high. He then demonstrates how he can place the mouthpiece in different (horizontal) placements that, I think he claims, naturally create a thin air stream for high notes.
But the key is his Mays Double-Aperture System (MDAS). This is used to unlock “High Note Air Jets” (HNAJ). He goes through a number of procedures to position the lower lip closer to the top teeth, position the top lip further away from the lower lip, curl the lower lip over the lower teeth, drag the lower lip so it’s in line with the edge of the lower teeth, direct the air up (with the jaw), experiment with horizontal mouthpiece placement (in order to find a place that “unlocks” air channels), experiment with vertical mouthpiece placement, and create “fast” air with “dry areas” of your lips.
Now I can see how some of this experimentation could lead to brass students finding a “sweet spot” on the lips that works best, but much of his description seems to be more his playing sensations or an analogy. This sort of experimentation done subjectively could just as easily screw a player up, in my opinion.
By the way, I would type his embouchure as a Medium High Placement type.
But there are a lot of more videos on YouTube that teach us the “secrets” to playing high. Let’s see what another says.
This video states that it’s tongue position. But he first describes that instead of going “up or down” on the center of the pitch we need to go “out deeper into the center of the instrument.” The lips, he says, are not the cause of the sound but rather just responding to everything else (most especially the oral cavity resonance). With the lip position what you want to do is think of the air column as a string. To go up an octave, you use the tongue position to “cut the air column in half.” He discusses a “half whistle,” which I like to describe as a pitched hissing instead.
Tongue position is an important part of the puzzle, and his idea of a “half whistle” is similar to something that I’ve been using in my own practice and teaching as well. But is it the “secret” to high notes for all players or does it depend on what the student is already doing and what direction they need to move towards? I think that in order for this concept to have such a dramatic effect the musician will need to have other things, like the embouchure and breathing, already pretty well in place.
By the way, my best guess for his embouchure type is the Very High Placement type.
In this video we learn a bit about how the brain is plastic and changes as we learn new motor skills, but it can adopt to incorrect technique as well as correct technique. So we need to practice correctly in order to reinforce efficient playing rather than incorrect playing.
Regarding the embouchure, he describes his as having an “open aperture.” The concept of an open or closed aperture to play a brass instrument is sometimes brought up, but people often use the terms differently and neither really describes what happens as a tone is being played. The aperture actually opens and closes throughout the playing. Regardless, he makes the connection between aperture size and dynamic (larger aperture for louder notes, smaller for softer) and range (smaller aperture for higher notes, larger for lower).
According to this teacher, we can create “compression” at three points in the playing apparatus; the lips, the tongue, and the glottis. Of the three, we don’t really want to do so at the glottis as that tends to cause playing issues. The tongue is used to create a resonance in the oral cavity to match the pitch being played, as described in the previous video. He briefly discusses a “modified yoga breathing,” which he describes as a process to breathe in first at the abdomen, then the intercostal muscles, and then then “claviculary” (at the clavicles). The goal of all of this is to remove excess tension, so I guess that’s the secret he’s talking about.
For descriptions and instructions on breathing I think I prefer to avoid the three-step process he advocates. I lean more towards how Arnold Jacobs would prefer to get the student taking a natural breath, using the sensation of moving air instead. Perhaps you could use those three regions as a guide for the teacher to use to see if the inhalation is working correctly, but Jacobs famously pointed out that you can imitate this body movements without moving the air correctly. It’s not the body moving that creates efficient and relaxed breathing, but rather efficient breathing that causes the body to move in the manner we associate as correct.
I can’t really guess his embouchure type from this video. Every time he plays the camera focuses on the bell of his trumpet and we can’t get a decent look at his embouchure. Probably one of the downstream types.
What’s the point of going through contrasting discussions on playing well in the upper register? Particularly since they cover some different things? Some players could definitely follow the advice of any of these videos (or the myriad of other videos purporting to offer the “secret”) and find something that clicks. But again, it really depends on what other playing factors are already in place and what needs adjustments.
With my personal interest in brass embouchure technique and pedagogy it’s very easy for me to break down the “secret” to opening up the upper register there. If I were to take it more personal, I might even advise all players to put as little upper lip inside the mouthpiece as possible and play upstream. But that particular adjustment that worked so well for me might be exactly opposite of what another player needs to do.
Ultimately the best way to open up the upper register is to get the coordination of all the different playing factors working together. It can be very helpful to isolate something in particular (tongue position, mouthpiece placement, breathing, etc.) because it can help us to both diagnose what needs changing and make the corrections. But these things must interact with the other playing factors in order for things to work efficiently.
I’ve discussed (quite a while ago) how I dislike it when brass teachers describe things as “secrets” to unlock your potential. It always seems that when that’s the rhetoric the advice is either pretty much already acknowledged as an important part of good playing mechanics or something really unusual that I wouldn’t advocate for. Most of the time I think well-intentioned teachers describe what clicked for them personally and then transfer its importance on to every student.
What do you think? Is there really a “secret” to good brass technique? Do you think that it’s OK to describe corrections as a “secret” and I’m being pedantic? Or do you agree with this pet peeve and think that brass teachers need to stop being so over-the-top in their sales technique? Is it just a way for these teachers to get clicks on their videos, drive traffic, and hawk their books and lessons? Let me know in the comments if I’m being a curmudgeon.
Yesterday I attended the North Carolina Trombone Festival, held at Appalachian State University this year. It was a wonderful time. I heard two very fine trombone choirs perform, the ASU Trombone Choir and the Charlotte Trombone Collective. The Performer’s Showcase Recital featured a number of the guest artists and most performed pieces I wasn’t familiar with already. I got to meet some colleagues from around North Carolina that I haven’t met before and also finally met a couple of teachers face to face for the first time.
There were also some workshops and I gave a presentation on brass embouchure technique and pedagogy in the morning session. While preparing for this I spent some time practicing it and recorded myself. Here is one practice session, unedited, but I think that it will get the points across pretty well. I didn’t write out everything I planned to say. Instead I had some bullet points of things I wanted to say in my presenters notes (as well as on the slides) and spoke about them off the cuff. I think that this makes a live presentation feel more natural, but on video it perhaps comes across better to recite something prewritten. What do you think?
At any rate, here is the practice session for anyone who is interested but wasn’t able to attend the festival or went to another workshop at the same time.
If you’ve read through some of my embouchure materials I’ve already posted here you’ll recognize the discussion as well as many of the examples I use. But it’s possible that this format and organization works well for some people as an introduction or review.
I recently got an email from a trumpet player, Lee, who reminded me about a topic I’ve been meaning to blog about for a while. In his email about a different topic Lee mentioned that the range requirements for trumpet player are more demanding than that of trombone. While on the surface this could be correct, I’m not so certain that this is really true. There certainly is a lot more nuance that goes beyond how high each of those instruments are expected to play. There’s also the range where these instruments spend the most time playing as well as the length of time in a given performance. Of course that’s going to depend also on the style of the music and what the individual piece is. It’s really hard to quantify this and often it gets framed as which brass instrument is harder to play, which is not really a useful argument.
Regardless, as someone who has spent a lot of time studying scores of great composers and arrangers I’ve noticed that the playing demands placed on different brass instruments are not always comparable. A phrase played on a Bb trumpet in a particular range is going to have a completely different quality if played an octave lower on a trombone. A trombonist pasting out an F above high Bb can sound exciting, but it doesn’t have quite the same punch as the equivalent G above high C on trumpet. Then we also need to consider how much a particular brass part plays on a given piece of music. If I were asked to play a NOLA brass band style sousaphone part in the equivalent range on tenor trombone or euphonium I think I would be gassed by the end of one set, maybe sooner. Good arrangers come to an understanding of what good brass players are capable of and write parts accordingly.
Are there some ways to objectively look at the playing demands placed on different brass instruments? Maybe, but all the ways I can think of have their limitations. Still, I find this an interesting thought experiment and did some “back of the envelope” analysis to see if I could come up with anything that might tease out an understanding.
While I’m not really a brass doubler, I do find it useful to practice trumpet from time to time and while I was a student, particularly in high school, I played all the brass instruments in different ensembles. I also taught all the brass instruments for a while back when I was teaching at Adams State College and ended up working on my chops on all the brass to try to be able to keep up with my students. But honestly, I found it more effective to simply transpose and play along on trombone with my students on other brass instruments because it provided a better model. I’m providing this background simply to point out that I’m not completely inexperienced on every brass instrument, but also to acknowledge that I’m only expert on trombone (and some might argue not even on that). My background as a composer and arranger writing for brass might be more relevant, since I’ve had a chance to discover through trial and error what works well for different brass.
Suggested Ranges – Orchestral
The easiest way to look at the demands on brass range I could think of was to look at orchestration and arranging sources to see what is recommended by experts. Are trumpet players generally required to play a greater range than tubists? Which brass instrument seems to require the widest range or the highest range? For my purposes in this post I’m going to focus on trumpet and trombone in particular, but also discuss tuba and French horn when I have some info to share.
One of the first books I was assigned as an undergrad for scoring music was The Study of Orchestration, by Samuel Adler. I have the 2nd edition, so your copy might be different. If you’re not familiar with this text, it is largely concerned with orchestral arranging, so these ranges might seem a little smaller if you compare this to big band playing.
Bb Trumpet
This text suggests a range of 2 octaves and a minor 6th for trumpet. The highest recommended note is the 9th partial. The Adler text also helpfully describes the characteristics of the registers for each instruments. For trumpet it describes the lowest written F# to the B above as “rather dull,” the middle C to A above the staff as “clear bright and most articulate,” and B above the staff to the D above the staff as “brilliant but strident.”
French Horn
Horn is a different animal than the other brass instruments. The fundamental pitch of the instrument is actually lower than a trombone, but they tend to be scored on higher sounding pitches. The range demands on a horn are larger than on the other brass, Adler recommends a playable range of just under 4 octaves. We are cautioned, however, that the lower register are difficult and to be avoided in fast passages. Written C below middle C up to G below middle C is described as “dark and may be a bit unfocused.” Above that to written middle C is “deep and solid.” From there to G on top of the treble clef staff is “bright and heroic” and above that is “brilliant and loud.” The highest suggested note is way up in the partials and I’m too lazy to count and figure it out. If you’re a horn player help me out in the comments.
Tenor Trombone
The suggested range for a tenor trombone is 2 octaves and a diminished 5th, a whole step smaller than trumpet, but then Adler provides some additional upper register notes in the parenthesis. Adler writes, “Theoretically, the quarter notes . . . are possible, and many professional players can play them, but they are difficult and risky.” If we included the highest note in the above suggested range the tenor trombone has a range of 3 octaves and a minor 2nd. The lowest pitch up to the G on the bottom of the bass clef staff is described as “dark and rather nondescript.” From there to the F above the bass clef staff is labeled as “very strong.” G above the bass clef to the Bb whole note in the tenor clef above is “very intense.” The highest suggested whole note is the 8th partial.
Tuba
Adler’s suggested range for writing for tuba is 3 octaves and a major 2nd, but it is covered in the text that tubists will often play instruments pitched in different keys. The lowest suggested pitch above, F, to the Bb two ledger lines below the staff is described as sounding “deep and heavy.” From the C below the staff to E in the staff is indicated as sounding “very strong” and above that is “getting weaker but quite intense.” The highest recommended pitch for tuba is the 13th partial, I think.
“Winner of the Range Contest”
It’s not a contest, but the horn wins with almost 4 octaves. Tuba comes in second with 3 octaves and a major 2nd. Trumpet and trombone are about the same, roughly 2 and 1/2 octaves, depending on which pitch you go with for the highest recommended note on trombone.
Suggested Range – Big Band
For suggested ranges for big band writing I grabbed Nelson Riddle’s text, Arranged by Nelson Riddle. I’ve got several good books on arranging for big band, this just happened to be the first one that I grabbed off my shelf.
Trumpet
This suggested range is very close to Adler’s suggestions. For some reason the lowest note is a half step higher, so 2 octaves and a Perfect 4th. If you know Nelson Riddle’s arranging you know that he would often write his lead trumpet parts higher than suggested.
Trombone
Riddle describes the recommended range of the trombone differently from the trumpet, like Adler. The two notes at the beginning of the above example are almost the same as the equivalent trumpet range, 2 octaves and a diminished 5th. But Riddle also adds some pedal tones (personally, I wouldn’t recommend too many pedals on tenor trombone and the lowest I can think of in classical repertoire is the pedal G in the David Concertino for Trombone and Orchestra.) He clarifies his upper register suggestions as “The upper notes. . . are all practical and easily available to experienced professionals, but younger and weaker lips usually have ‘A’ or ‘Bb’ as a ceiling, and the high ‘D’ in particular seems to be the starting note of a kind of ‘stratosphere’ which is closed to all but the very finest players.”
French Horn
Riddles range suggestions for horn are difficult to follow. The above image is a recreation of what is in the book, but there’s not much description on what all that means. He covers the French horn in his chapter on woodwinds and then later in the chapter on brass. I may be missing a complete discussion on what ranges he recommends for horn, since I’m skimming.
Tuba
Riddle’s suggested range for tuba is a bit smaller than Adler’s, 3 octaves total.
“Winner of the Range Contest”
Again, not a contest, but at least according to Riddle the tuba “wins” at 3 octaves. I won’t attempt a guess as to what he feels is the playable range for the horn. The trombone might be considered to eke out the trumpet a hair. That said, I tend to think of the playable ranges of trumpet and trombone as being equivalent to each other (for professional players), but with some caveats that I mentioned earlier and that I’ll get into now.
Playing Demand Comparisons – Big Band Lead Trumpet and Lead Trombone
Something important for composers and arrangers to consider when writing for brass is how much time the players spend actually playing and how much rest they get in a given piece. Nelson Riddle notes, “The brass section should be used for punctuation and support, and should not be given the sustained passages you would assign to string players, who can saw away for hours without rippling a muscle or generating one drop of perspiration.”
Since most of my own writing and much of my playing is for big band, I’m most familiar with that repertoire. One thing I’ve noticed with most of the great arrangers is that the trumpets generally are used more sparingly than the trombone section. I think there are two main practical reasons why. First, the lead trumpet part in the upper register is often saved for the exciting shout chorus and it’s helpful to give the trumpet section a chance to rest a bit before they are required to play up there. Secondly, the range of the trombone section alone is a bit more rich and solid sounding than a the trumpet section up an octave by themselves. While there are certainly times when the trumpet section can carry a passage on their own, it’s more common for that section to be blended with the saxophone or trombone section. You don’t have to go very high before 4 trumpets alone start to sound “tinny” whereas the trombone section voiced an octave below is in a range that sounds rich and clear.
But I wanted to come up with a more objective way to measure my impressions here. I grabbed a chart out of my own library, A Little Minor Booze by Willie Maiden, written for the Stan Kenton Orchestra. I figured something out of the Kenton library might make for a representative sample of what is expected in modern big band playing. I looked at the lead trumpet and lead trombone parts and worked out a couple of different things that would give us a glimpse into the different playing demands. I worked out the required range for both parts, but also looked at what the average note and median note was for both parts. I also looked at how much of the chart each player would have the metal on the mouth. It’s not really an accurate comparison, a quarter note playing a 6th partial concert F isn’t as demanding as playing that same pitch for a whole note. Controlling for that sort of variable is too much work for a blog post (and just guess at how much effort it took to write this post already), but I think it could be done if someone was interested enough.
Here are the results using some charts to compare.
Following this chart takes some explaining. In order to easily calculate these numbers I assigned the number 1 to the concert E below the staff for both trumpet and trombone (the lowest recommended non-pedal tone note for both). The F above that was assigned the number 2 and so on, all the way up to the written “double C” on trumpet at number 43. Here’s another way to look at this data.
Lowest Pitch Played
Lead Trumpet (written)
Lead Trombone
The lead trombone part was required to play the equivalent of an octave lower than the lead trumpet part.
Highest Pitch Played
Lead Trumpet (written)
Lead Trombone
On the second to last measure the lead trumpet has to play a “double C.” This is a major 6th higher than the equivalent highest note on the lead trombone part. The lead trumpet part has an entire range of two octaves, the C in the middle of the staff to the C two octaves above. The lead trombone part has an entire range of 2 octaves plus a minor 3rd.
Average Pitch
Lead Trumpet (written)
Lead Trombone
The average pitch for the lead trumpet part came out to a diminished 5th higher than the lead trombone part.
Median Pitch
Lead Trumpet (written)
Lead Trombone
The median pitch, that is the middle between the highest and lowest notes played in both parts, has the lead trumpet part a major 3rd above the lead trombone part.
Mode Pitch
Lead Trumpet (written)
Lead Trombone
The mode pitch refers to the pitch that occurred most often in the part. The lead trumpet mode note was the equivalent of a Perfect 4th higher than the mode note in the lead trombone part.
Measures Spent with the Metal on the Mouth
Lead Trumpet
Lead Trombone
The entire chart of A Little Minor Booze is 108 measures long (not counting the quarter note pickup). The lead trumpet part has at least one note in 33 measures, compared to the lead trombone part having 53 measures with something to be played.
Summary Impressions
First of all, let me make it clear that all the above really doesn’t tell us which brass instrument is the most demanding to play, but it might give the composer/arranger some ideas on what brass are capable of and how to write more idiomatically for those instruments. For big band writing in general, my best guess is that the lead trumpet will typically be required to play higher, but the lead trombone part will be required to play a wider range in general. The trombone section will typically need to play for longer periods of time with less rest, whereas the trumpets, who probably need to play more in the upper side of their range, will get more rest. If you want your trombone parts to be higher than typical you might want to write them with more rests than normal. Likewise, if you want your trumpets to play more throughout your arrangement you should write their range lower than you might otherwise. If you want to look at which instrument is required to play the widest range in general, you can probably assume French horn can cover the most range, followed by tuba, trombone, then trumpet.
My general thoughts on range capabilities for similarly experienced brass musicians is to pretty much think of them as the same. Take the roughly 2 and 1/2 octaves for trumpet and transpose that down an octave for the range of trombone and euphonium. Drop that down an octave for tuba standard range. Those aren’t perfect, but they will give you a decent idea to work with so that instead of having to memorize ranges for 3 different brass instruments you memorize 1 range and transpose by octaves. French horn, of course, is different and you’ll need to learn their range if you’re going to write for that instrument effectively.
I’m going to play “guess the embouchure type” again, this time looking at a couple of videos of Christopher Martin’s trumpet playing. Martin is the principle trumpet with the New York Philharmonic and formerly played with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, so you know his playing is impeccable. Take a look at his chops in these two videos and see if you can guess his embouchure type. My guess after the break.
The best look at his embouchure is at the very beginning, when he plays the Pictures at an Exhibition excerpt. Since this trumpet solo involves a lot of large intervals you should be able to get a good enough look at his chops to tell, but here’s another video that has good shots of his embouchure for much longer.
I was lurking on a brass forum and came across some discussion of the Stevens-Costello book, Embouchure Self-Analysis: The Stevens-Costello Embouchure Technique, by trumpet teacher Roy Stevens. It had been probably 15 years since I read this book, so I got a hold of a copy, reread it, and have started practicing out of this book. It’s an interesting book, filled with a lot of advice that I find very good, but also some inaccurate statements about brass embouchures and a lot of advice that is probably only relevant to a smaller portion of brass players.
Embouchure Self-Analysis was first self-published in 1971 and until Stevens’s death in 1988 remained in print. Afterwards, this text was harder to find until Bill Moriarity spearheaded an effort to get it reprinted in 2006. The copy I have lists a copyright for 2012 by David Hay. I ordered it here.
There are two main sections in this book. The first part is text and includes Stevens’s descriptions and suggestions for a well-functioning embouchure. I have mixed feelings about all this text, for a variety of reasons. My first complaint is that Stevens does what so many other brass teachers do, he assumes that how he plays must be “correct” for everyone. Stevens advised all players to play with an upstream setting and even instructs certain characteristics that won’t work for a certain minority of upstream players too. Brass musicians who aren’t suited for an upstream embouchure are who take Stevens’s instructions too far will struggle, but if you’re in the minority of players who have a Low Placement embouchure type and fit squarely into the variation of this type that Reinhardt classified as a Type IV embouchure the text describes very closely the mechanics of how this embouchure type tends to function at its best.
My own embouchure type is upstream, but I play with my jaw somewhat receded and have a lower horn angle. Reinhardt tabled this as a Type IVA. I just consider it to be a “Low Placement” embouchure type, since the same basic principals of playing correctly seem to apply to this variation. This is important, because a lot of the text discourages a receded jaw while playing, which is the best position for my anatomy. I can protrude my jaw into the position that Stevens recommends and I can make sounds that way, but it doesn’t work very well.
This is an important point and is my main criticism of this book. Roy Stevens essentially is advocating everyone play with the same embouchure type that worked for him. This flaw is very common in almost any brass resource that describes embouchure technique, so it’s not unique to Stevens. It’s ironic what Stevens’s student wrote in the appendix.
At the age of eighteen, I studied with a teacher who was credited with 50 years experience. After spending five years with this man I discovered the only theory his teachings were based upon was the altogether too common one of “I play the horn this way and so should you.”
Embouchure Self-Analysis, Stevens/Costello, p. 103
The key to working out of any method book is to understand that it’s not exactly what you practice, but how you practice that’s important. Anyone working out of this book will need to take at least some of Stevens’s descriptions of functioning embouchures with a grain of salt.
As I mentioned above, some of it is accurate for only one less common embouchure type.
The concept of aiming the air up for all notes or tones must be upheld. It is this formation of the embouchure musculature that will prevent slack or collapse of the surface tension in both lips.
Embouchure Self-Analysis, Stevens/Costello, p. 13
(This advice is great if you happen to have the anatomy that makes an upstream embouchure work best for you.)
Some of it is good general advice that will apply to most players.
Mouthpiece distribution of weight should be 40-45% top, 60-55% bottom.
Embouchure Self-Analysis, Stevens/Costello, p. 8
(The lower lip is usually a bit “meatier” than the upper lip and can take more mouthpiece pressure than the top lip. I feel it’s good advice for all players to keep a little more mouthpiece weight on the lower lip.)
And some of it I find questionable for almost all players.
I am vehemently opposed to the “common ground argument” of the (EEE) action of the tongue for the upper register combined with the relative jaw action. . .
Embouchure Self-Analysis, Stevens/Costello, p. 15-16
(It’s been pretty well established today that brass musicians alter the position of their tongue, generally raising it to ascend. For some players it can be more than others and for some players it can feel like they are keeping their tongue in position, but the reality is that tongue position while slurring and sustaining should move towards a higher position to ascend, just not too high.)
Sprinkled throughout the text are some unusual exercises or demonstrations. The most famous example is his “palm exercise.”
. . . [L]ay the instrument flat upon the palm of the left hand with the fingers extended in such way that with any excessive pressure, it will slide off.
Embouchure Self-Analysis, Stevens/Costello, p. 40
If you’re not already familiar with this exercise, here is a former student of Roy Stevens, Larry Meregillano, demonstrating and describing the exercise.
I’ve written about this idea before (Brass Myths – Hanging the Trumpet From the Ceiling, No Pressure Brass Embouchure – Fact or Urban Legend?, Trumpet on a String Legend Part 2 – Rafael Méndez). There may very well be something useful we can learn from trying this exercise out, but Stevens instructs us to, “Practice in this fashion at least a half hour a day, total playing time.” I can’t speak for you, but I’ve got too many other things to work on to spend 30 minutes with the instrument in my palm, even spread out over the day. It’s not the way I’m going to perform and the left hand grip is an important part of a trumpet or trombone musician’s embouchure mechanics. Frankly, I don’t find the palm exercise useful enough to practice it any more or recommend it to others. There are other, better ways to get at what you need.
The bulk of the book, however, are exercises that will be familiar to most brass musicians. The exercises tend to be organized around chord arpeggios playing along the overtone series. Stevens suggests playing each exercise set slurred and tongued. The ranges expand from the lower end of the trumpet range all the way up to the extreme upper register. There are dynamics indicated that get you playing soft and loud. There are exercises similar to ones you might find in Arbans that work on tonguing and fingering patterns. So you’re going to find that this book addresses a pretty complete list of brass playing technique.
A lot of space is saved in the book by not writing out complete exercises, but by writing out a single variation, say a rhythmic pattern, and asking you to play the previous exercise fully with that variation. I think this is good both for making the book a little more manageable to read, but also because I think it’s good to learn to play things without reading music.
There are a handful of exercises that can be played with 2 or 3 players, which would be useful for teachers who are warming students up or helping them with scales in different keys while in lessons.
I haven’t spent time working out of the back half of the book, but I have been using the exercises in the early part as part of my morning practice routine for a couple of months now. Since I’m aware enough how my chops work there are several instructions on how to practice them that I’ve ignored, but overall I feel that the time spent has been helpful. One of the flaws in the book, I feel, is that there’s little attention given to what order to practice the materials in and there’s simply too much in there to use all in one day, so you’ll need to skip around. I took the approach to play through everything up to a point and then picked and chose some things to focus on daily. I also have been doing fewer sets of most of the exercises. For example, rather than go up an exercise by half steps I go up by whole steps and get through the exercise faster. You’ll need to try the material out for yourself and see how you respond to them.
So overall my personal experience working out of Embouchure Self-Analysis has been positive, but your milage may vary. If you are definitely a “Low Placement” embouchure type and have the more common characteristic of aligning the teeth while playing then you’ll probably do pretty well following most of Stevens’s advice. If you’re not, you’ll need to work out which parts you need to ignore, such as a placement with more lower lip inside the mouthpiece or a horn angle close to straight out. The exercises themselves are pretty good and most brass players will find working on them to be a pretty good embouchure workout. Just practice them carefully and don’t overdo it.
Have you read this book and tried out the exercises for yourself? Did you study with Roy Stevens and have something to add or a correction to make? Please leave your thoughts in the comments section. I’d love to hear the opinion of others about it.
Another interesting guess the embouchure type for you – very clear shot at .55 of this very famous player. Almost looks like a smile embouchure but I’d guess not due to his successful longevity.
Greg
Check out the YouTube video that Greg sent me and take your guess about Harry James’s embouchure type. My guess after the page break.
I’ve posted about the Trumpet Gurus Hang Youtube channel before here. Every week José Johnson brings in a trumpet player or teacher to talk making music. The latest episode features Rich Willey. Rich is based in the same area as me, so we have played together many times. Rich also studied extensively with Donald Reinhardt, one of the primary sources of my dissertation research. He is also currently working with my mentor, Doug Elliott, who’s teaching and pedagogy helped me break past my own musical hurdles and strongly influenced the way I teach.
Check out this episode to learn a little more about Rich and Reinhardt’s teaching.
Andrea Giuffredi is a very fine Italian trumpet player with a series of YouTube videos with exercises and backing tracks. You can put them on, listen to Giuffredi play the exercise, then play the exercise back. Here’s an example, which conveniently is a series of exercises based on octave slurs. Octave slurs are useful for guessing a player’s embouchure type because the interval is large enough that you can usually spot the embouchure motion fairly easily. Take a look at this video and see if you can guess his embouchure type. My guess is after the break.
