Here is a cleaned up version of my 50 minute video presentation called Brass Embouchures: A Guide For Teachers and Players. While I’ve had this presentation up on YouTube already, I had to split it into 6 parts when I initially posted it. Later I tried to post it in a single video, but the audio and video didn’t sync up towards the end. This time I believe it should work just fine all the way through.
Category: Very High Placement Type
Guess the Embouchure Types: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Brass Quintet
Tip of the horn to John B. for spotting this video of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Brass Quintet. Back in high school I took a semester of Japanese and recognize the characters in the video as the kana. I gave up after a short while trying to work out which of the orchestra’s brass players are performing here, so if anyone knows and can supply us the names of the individual performers, please leave a comment. (Update – Dan F. worked out the trombonist, it’s Jorgen Van Rijen. Thanks, Dan!)
You can get a pretty close look at all five of their chops in this video, but it’s tough to spot all of their embouchure motions because most of the time there isn’t enough of a range change at that moment in the music to see one (this is why in my videos I demonstrate this with octave slurs, it’s a large enough interval to clearly see them). Still, we can make an educated guess based on mouthpiece placement and there are a couple of points in the video where you can spot a player’s embouchure motion. Take a look and make your best guess of their embouchure types. My speculations after the break.
Continue reading “Guess the Embouchure Types: Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Brass Quintet”
Guess the Embouchure Type: “ptarus”
Here’s another guess the embouchure type YouTube video, from “ptarus.” He posted the following short video of him playing a slur over four octaves on trombone with a very good look at his mouthpiece placement and embouchure motion. Take a look and see if you can guess what his embouchure type is.
If this is you (you know who you are), you’re not allowed to guess!
Continue reading “Guess the Embouchure Type: “ptarus””Guess the Embouchure Type: Bob McChesney
First, sorry for the lack of regular updates lately. As things so often go, I got slammed with grading and class prepping and then wanted to unplug for a bit. I hope all the U.S. readers had a pleasant Thanksgiving.
Today I’m going to try to guess Bob McChesney’s embouchure type. McChesney is a fantastic trombonist (as you’ll hear in these videos) and also the author of a very popular book on the jazz trombone technique of doodle tonguing. Here is McChesney playing one of the parts for his arrangement on I Love You. As you watch, see if you can guess which of the three basic embouchure types he is.
Guess the Embouchure Type – Tubist Øystein Baadsvik
It’s time for another one of my installments of “Guess the Embouchure Type.” This week I’m going to see if I can tell what embouchure type the great Norwegian tubist Øystein Baadsvik belongs to. Take a look at this video of him playing the Vittorio Monti version of Czardas and see if you can tell. Although he moves around a lot, making it tough to get an easy look at his chops, beginning around 3:35 into the clip you should be able to spot enough to make an educated guess, if you know what to look for.
Guess the Embouchure Type – Hornist Nury Guarnaschelli
It’s time for another installment of “Guess the Embouchure Type.” Today, I’m going to try to guess the embouchure type of German hornist Nury Guarnashelli.
As always, you need to take this with a grain of salt, but there’s a close enough look at her embouchure that I can state pretty confidently that she belongs to a Very High Placement embouchure type. If you skip ahead to 6:20 into the video you’ll get the closest look at her embouchure. You can see that the placement is quite high on the lips, with a great deal more upper lip inside the mouthpiece. Because of the predominance of the upper lip, you don’t really need to see her embouchure in a transparent mouthpiece to tell that it’s probably one of the two downstream embouchure types. The best clue, however, is the apparent direction of her embouchure motion. If you know what to look for, you can easily spot her pushing the mouthpiece and lips together up to ascend and pulling them down to descend. There is only one of the three basic embouchure types that makes this sort of motion, the Very High Placement type.
Continue reading “Guess the Embouchure Type – Hornist Nury Guarnaschelli”Bob Brookmeyer – A Closeup Look At His Chops
I’m going to play Guess the Embouchure Type again. Today it’s the great valve trombonist Bob Brookmeyer. Here’s a video of him playing with guitarist John Scofield.
There are a couple of moments in the video (1:31-1:41 and 2:52-3:03) where the camera focused on his embouchure. Based on such a close look, I can take an educated guess about which embouchure type Brookmeyer has.
Continue reading “Bob Brookmeyer – A Closeup Look At His Chops”Wes Funderburk – A look at his chops and his podcast
I’ve been checking out trombonist Wes Funderburk for a while now. He has a really neat podcast called Blog Sounds full of great trombone playing and composing. He also posts sometimes over at the Trombone Forum.
The other day I came across one of his YouTube videos that provides a pretty good close-up look at his chops. Embouchure geek that I am, I thought I’d play one of my favorite games – guessing a brass players embouchure type. Check out his “Pavilion Improvisation” and see what you think.
What a great player!
Because of the camera angle, it’s a little hard to get a good look at the ratio of upper to lower lip inside the mouthpiece, but I think it’s a pretty good guess to say his embouchure is one of the downstream types because there is more upper lip inside.
The real clue in this case is the apparent direction of his embouchure motion. It’s especially noticeable when he jumps from the middle or upper register down to low notes (usually in conjunction with the multiphonics in his video) and back up again. It appears he’s pulling his mouthpiece and lips down to descend and pushing them up to ascend. There’s only one basic embouchure type that does this, the Very High Placement embouchure type.
Continue reading “Wes Funderburk – A look at his chops and his podcast”The Three Basic Embouchure Types
When looking closely at a large number of brass player’s embouchures certain patterns emerge, irrespective of the player’s instrument or practice approach. Using two universal features of all brass embouchures, the air stream direction as it pass the lips into the mouthpiece and the pushing and pulling of the lips and mouthpiece together up and down along the teeth, it’s possible to classify all brass embouchures into three basic types.
Since each of these three basic embouchure types function quite differently from each other it’s important for brass teachers to understand them, as different types respond to the same instruction in different ways. Understanding what proper embouchure form is for each type will help teachers guide their students more efficiently and also understand when a player is playing on an embouchure that isn’t appropriate for his or her anatomy. When confronted with a serious embouchure dysfunction it can help teachers discover the real cause of the troubles and how to best go about correcting them.
Continue reading “The Three Basic Embouchure Types”Brass Embouchures: A Guide For Teachers and Players
On November 8, 2009 I gave this presentation to the North Carolina Music Educators Convention, held in Winston-Salem, NC. I was pleasantly surprised to have a generally full room of musicians and music educators who mostly seemed genuinely interested in learning more about a topic that is typically ignored in favor of a “let the body figure itself out” practice.
In order to make this information more accessible for both my NCMEA audience as well as to the general public, I created a video that includes my slide show notes, video footage, and the narration from my presentation.
Continue reading “Brass Embouchures: A Guide For Teachers and Players”