Kurt and I were involved in a discussion on the Trumpet Herald Forum a while back and we got sidetracked into a private discussion. I had asked Kurt if he would be willing to video tape his chops so I could take a closer look at them and he sent me the below video. Take a closer look and see if you can guess his embouchure type. My guess after the break.
First of all, it’s very impressive playing (very strong D above “double C” at the end!). Kurt is a fine trumpet player and he’s got several things going on that are worth emulating. The first half of it only shows one side of his embouchure, but you can see how he keeps his mouthpiece set on his lips at all times and takes in his breaths through the mouth corners.
Speaking of his mouth corners, note that they are firm and remain locked in place throughout most of his range. He doesn’t allow them to pull back into a smile while ascending, nor do they collapse or get loose when he plays in his low register. This helps connect the high range and low range and really seems to work better in the long term, rather than collapsing the embouchure formation or excessively dropping the jaw to descend.
As far as his embouchure type goes, there are three big clues. First, note that he plays with more upper lip inside the cup. This would indicate that he belongs to one of the two downstream embouchure types. Secondly, his embouchure motion is minimal (which is why it is good to use large interval changes spanning one or more octaves to look for it with some players), but clearly pulling his lips and mouthpiece together down to ascend and up to ascend (and perhaps a bit down and to his left to ascend and up and to the right to descend). These two characteristics together would make Kurt’s embouchure type to fit the “medium high placement” embouchure type, but there is also another clue that also makes me lean towards this embouchure type.
Take a look the later half of the video where you can see Kurt’s horn angle. Notice that his mouthpiece has a bent shank to allow him to have a horn angle that looks close to straight out while still keeping his jaw receded and excessive mouthpiece pressure off his top lip. A lowered horn angle and receded jaw position is very common with the “medium high placement” embouchure type. The other two basic embouchure types tend to keep their horn angles close to straight out with their teeth more or less aligned. I should add that these are generalities, I have a “low placement” embouchure type with a receded jaw position and I have studied a “very high placement” embouchure trumpet player who uses a mouthpiece with a bent shank because his horn angle is quite low too. All these features taken together, however (downstream, embouchure motion down to ascend, and receded jaw position) are very typical of the “medium high placement” type.
Did you have a different guess? What made you think so?
Thanks to Kurt for sending me the video and also for agreeing to let me post it here!
Rather than this -“… keeping his jaw receded and excessive mouthpiece pressure of his top lip” – I think you mean OFF his top lip!
Yes, thanks for catching the typo.
Can I post here?
First, I like the way Kurt keeps his lips in the “just touching” position at all times. And, yes he’s really strong. However, I’m having trouble seeing the embouchure motion that you are seeing. To me he seems to be pushing up to ascend in the first front-view clips. I do see pulling down to ascend in the later side-view extreme upper range clips.
At 0:56 the ring is extremely high; almost entirely on the top lip. (IIIA Ring?)
Looks very IIIa to me. Is he not clearly pushing up for those high notes? It looks even more clear when he slurs the double octave.
FWIW, I’m also a IIIa with a lower horn angle.
Years ago I was typed as a IIIB by Mike Crotty, and then shortly after that as a IIIA by Kenny Smukal. Playing as a IIIA (pulling up as I ascend) caused a variety of problems until I finally had a lesson with Dave Sheetz, who conclusively typed me as a IIIB. Things work much better for me when I pull down to ascend, which is what I’m doing in this video.
Kurt. Interesting. I’ve never seen a top lip ring that high on a IIIB, but of course it’s what’s in the cup while playing that’s more important. And like Doc says, if you pull down to ascend, you should be classed as IIIB. So, did you see what Michael & I saw at the front view of the clips where the mpc gets closer to the nose as you ascend? Just trying to fit this into the Pivot System in my head.
I think I may have been playing against my type for a couple of moments earlier in the clip. Very observant!