Wilktone

Jazz, brass, composition, and other things music related.

Wilktone - Jazz, brass, composition, and other things music related.

Category Archives: Brass

Kind Words From Rusty McKinney

Rusty McKinney, bass trombone

Rusty McKinney, bass trombone

A short while ago I got an email from Rusty McKinney, formerly the bass trombonist with the Utah Symphony. Rusty is one of the examples of an upstream orchestral player I mentioned in my article about five common embouchure misconceptions, specifically referring to the myth that all players need to place the mouthpiece centered or with more top lip inside the mouthpiece. Rusty has a low placement and plays quite well with it! He gave me permission to quote our email exchange and so here are some of the things he mentioned to me, with a few of my thoughts scattered between.

HI Dave,

I ran across your site and saw that you mentioned me in your upstream are in “Myths ” section. I often make the upstream list and am intrigued and slightly amused that it is usually me and jazz artists!

Like Rusty, I too find it interesting that most of the upstream players that we know about are jazz players. It’s definitely true that downstream players are more common, not because of any inherent advantage but because more players don’t have the anatomical features that make upstream players work best. I also feel that because teachers have a tendency to teach what worked for them personally that many upstream players are taught to move their mouthpiece higher on the lips and are forced into a downstream embouchure inadvertently. These players will typically struggle and either never reach their full potential or give up brass playing altogether. Because jazz players are more likely to be self taught and classical players tend to go through formal music education (particularly in conservatories, where tradition is strong) this tends to weed out upstream players in favor of downstream players.

Anyway, I wanted to let you know that I am more in your neighborhood than I used to be. I left the Utah Symphony about two years ago to switch my emphasis to being a church music director and as such I am now fulltime at White Plains United Methodist Church in Cary, NC.

I am still playing regularly, often subbing in the NC symphony, and playing for NC Opera and various orchestras that are put together for Duke Chapel. And I have given master classes this past Spring at UNC Chapel Hill for Mike Chris’ Studio and at UNCSA for John Ilika’s studio.

Hope we can connect sometime. My upstream embouchure still works just fine!

One of the common arguments I hear from downstream teachers who discourage the low mouthpiece placement that is what makes an upstream embouchure is that it will eventually break down. Rusty is a perfect example of how an upstream embouchure can function very well long term, when the player learns to work with his or her natural tendencies.

Too many folks dismiss the embouchure and that is a bad thing. I would have been ruined by well meaning teachers had I not been so bull headed. And been lucky to find folks along the way like Doug [Elliot] who either understood how the upstreamer functions or as with others who didn’t care how I did it, as long as I got good results and had endurance.

One of the funniest moments was when I was in Jr. High and my teacher, a respected ( and rightfully so ) college professor had me play for a visiting artist from Las Vegas. He had a few suggestions about improving my legato but said nothing about my embouchure. When my teacher started pointing out all the things that were “wrong” with my set-up the clinician said, “Hey man, if  you can get a sound like that you could stick the mouthpiece in your ear for all I care!”  It was pretty funny. My teacher wasn’t especially amused.

Great story. Thanks to Rusty for stopping by and allowing me to post his emails. I’m excited that he’s now so close to where I am (Asheville, NC) and the next time I make it out east towards him I hope that we’ll be able to hook up and share some upstream embouchure stories.

My own upstream embouchure is still working fine too!

Smoky Mountain Brass Band Concert Sunday, April 28, 2013

smbb29seasonThis Sunday (April 28, 2013) the Smoky Mountain Brass Band will be performing a concert at Groce United Methodist Church in Asheville, NC. The concert is free, but we will be collecting a good will offering that will be split between a charity for the church and to help pay for the band’s expenses for the season. It starts at 3:00 PM.

I’ve programmed a variety of music for this concert, so there should be a little bit for everyone. There are a couple of pieces by James Curnow, Brass Metamorphosis and Concertpiece for Cornet (which will feature Asheville High School math teacher, Bill Ross, on the solo – he sounds great on this). There are a couple of march transcriptions. Many will recognize Colonel Bogey  March from the film Bridge on the River Kwai. One of our cornet players, Peter Voisin, arranged a couple of pieces for the group, Bring Him Home from Les Misérables and Sleep, a really beautiful piece by Eric Whitacre (see embedded video below for Whitacre’s virtual choir performance of it).

If your in western North Carolina this Sunday please come hear our performance and be sure to say hello.

Guess the Embouchure Type – Wild Bill Davis and Ashley Alexander

It’s time for another “Guess the Embouchure Type.” This time I’m going to take a look at trumpet player Wild Bill Davis and trombonist Ashley Alexander and see if I can guess which embouchure type they have. Take a look at the below video and see what you think. My guess after the break.

Wild Bill Davis is a tough one, while Ashley Alexander’s is quite easy to spot.  Continue reading →

Waltz of the Two Lips

I just came across the below YouTube video, coincidentally a couple of days after bringing this research up to Paul T. and not being able to remember the name of the author.  Jay Bulen, now professor of trombone at Truman State University, filmed trombonists’ embouchures using a camera and strobe light set up inside the mouthpiece to study the lip motion while buzzing. This video shows the lips of Peter Ellefson, who teaches trombone at Indiana University.

One of Bulen’s test subjects, whose name I’ve forgotten, sent me the video footage of his embouchure while I was researching for my dissertation. Because you don’t get to see the embouchure formation from the outside, it’s hard to put these videos into context to determine a player’s embouchure type, but in the case of Ellefson’s embouchure it looks like the upper lip predominates, so his embouchure must be one of the downstream types.

Bulen’s research, titled Synchronized Optical and Acoustical Measurements of Trombone Embouchure, was published in the The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. Here’s the abstract:

Outward striking‐ and inward striking‐reed models have been proposed for representing brass players’ lips [Sanoyesi etal., Acustica 62, 194–210 (1987)]. The models differ in the predicted relationship between mouthpiece pressure and lip displacement. To investigate this, Yoshikawa measured the phase relationship between mouthpiece pressure and lip strain as indicated by a strain gauge taped to the upper lip [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 97, 1929–1939 (1995)]. However, the relationship between strain and displacement have not been experimentally established, and Yoshikawa’s assumed correspondence ‘‘is still a hypothesis which needs refinement’’ (p. 1931). Optical measurements are required. Synchronized optical and acoustical measurements of a trombonist’s embouchure have been made under performance conditions, using an adaptation of techniques described in Sercarz etal. [Am. J. Otolaryngol. 13, 40–44 (1992)]. Using strobed videoscopy, individual video fields are coordinated with mouthpiece pressure by means of timing signals. The phase relationship between mouthpiece pressure and lip displacement will be reported for a variety of fundamental frequencies and intensities. In addition, estimates will be presented of the aperture area and the mouthpiece volume swept out by the lips.The goal of this informal workshop, a continuation of Session 1aSC, is to bring together several researchers working on various aspects of voice perception. Historically, the study of voice has been treated as a more‐or‐less autonomous area quite distinct from other research problems in speech and hearing sciences. In this workshop, some of the traditional problems of voice classification and perception will be discussed and reviewed and then these efforts will be related to recent findings in speech perception and spoken word recognition which have shown important dependencies between traditional voice parameters and perceptual analysis of the speech signal.

Guess the Embouchure Type – Kurt

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.

Continue reading →

Bass Trombonist’s Embouchure Filmed With High Speed Video

About a year ago Stephan had some questions about my dissertation (The Correlation Between Doug Elliott’s Embouchure Types and Selected Physical and Playing Characteristics Among Trombonists) and I sent him a copy (in case he had insomnia). Recently he emailed me to ask about a bass trombonist friend of his who has been frustrated with some embouchure struggles he’s been having. His friend is worried about how his tooth structure might be affecting his tone quality. I asked him if he could take some video of his friend’s chops and Stephan came through with something I didn’t expect. Because it’s in high speed there’s no sound (filmed with 600 fps and replayed with 30 fps, which results in slow motion factor of 20), which makes it actually a bit harder to put what we’re seeing in context. Still, I am able to spot two things that I would recommend Stephan’s friend might try out. Take a close look at the video below and see what you think. My thoughts after the break.

Continue reading →

Guess the Embouchure Type – Bob Havens

Bob Havens was the featured trombone soloist with the Lawrence Welk Show for almost its entire run. He joined the show in 1960 (the show began in 1951 as a local Los Angeles program before going national in 1955) and he remained until the show ended in 1982. While I tend to find the music performed on this program hokey at best, it was always extremely well performed and you would be hard pressed to find better musicians. Bob Havens is no exception to that, he always played great on those shows and frequently demonstrated he could blow jazz very well too.

Check out this video of Havens being featured on Basin Street Blues to see what I mean.  He’s certainly playing for the audience of the program, but his improvising is very tasteful and you can hear what a great trombone player he is here. We also get a few good looks at his chops, so while you’re at it see if you can guess his embouchure type. My guess after the break.

Continue reading →

Golden Triangle Overture for Trombone Octet

I composed Golden Triangle Overture a couple of years ago for the Mississippi State University Trombone Choir, under the direction of my friend Dr. Richard Human. Over my winter break I got the urge to put together a demo recording of it to post here. I’m playing all 8 parts on tenor trombone, even though there is one alto trombone part and two bass trombone parts, because I don’t own those instruments.

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University of Sydney Wind and Brass Study

The University of Sydney Medical School has had this announcement about a wind and brass study they are undertaking up for a couple of years now.

The purpose of this proposal is to investigate a wider research design whereby several variables that may have an effect of the performance of brass instrumentalists are simultaneously evaluated. The aim of this study is to evaluate respiratory mechanics and facial muscle activity patterns in skilled wind and brass instrumentalists, and to further assess whether posture has an effect on the functional activity of breathing and embouchure.

Whenever a someone publishes something like this there are always some in the community who will call such research meaningless, but I think it’s neat to take a scientific look at what we think we know. One of the neat things about research is sometimes we learn something new that’s completely unrelated to the original purpose of the research. For example, when Lloyd Leno first began his high speed filming of trombone embouchures he was doing so to see if the lips vibrated at the same frequency of the pitch (he found they do, by the way). Along the way he was surprised that while most of his subjects had downstream embouchures, one was upstream.

Another good reason do conduct research like this is because while it’s common knowledge that poor posture while playing inhibits your playing, it hasn’t been really subjected to an honest test.

Research on pulmonary function, sound production and physical aspects of performance in wind players is scarce and current practice remains based on opinion of the teacher or health practitioner. . . Poor posture is frequently cited as an intrinsic risk factor leading to injuries occurring in musicians and that posture is an integral part of the mechanics of breathing for optimal performance of wind players, but there is no scientific evidence to substantiate this claim.

The emphases in the above quote are mine. I would predict that this study should find that posture indeed is integral to good brass technique, I have to admit that this is merely my opinion (and that of pretty much any other brass teacher and player as well). However, I have to admit that this common knowledge is really subject to our own confirmation bias. Wouldn’t it be interesting if after all the numbers are crunched they found that posture has a negligible effect on breathing and embouchure? Or maybe breathing but not embouchure?

Even should the results end up being a no brainer, there is still something that will be gleaned from looking closely at it this topic. We can learn more about how much posture should be emphasized and when to move on. When dealing with technique issues or injuries having a clear understanding will allow us to put posture into context with other mechanical issues.

A scientific approach to kinesthetics and motor skill development has done a lot to improve the state of athletics, to name one example, and there’s no reason why taking a similar approach to music performance and pedagogy wouldn’t do the same. While the music field tends to have a passing interest in this sort of research at best, I think we limit the tools of trade by doing so.

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