Unconscious Control

Here's a new comment to an older post. Thanks, Kenny.

A lot of playing the trumpet is controlled by the subconscious. Think about it for a moment - if we had to have an aperture setting of .015 of an inch high by .015 of an inch in width with 4.7 psi of air pressure and lip compression of .0025 pounds to achieve note X - how could we possibly do this? We could not. It would be physically impossible. We do not posses the conscious control over our bodies in this extreme. Only the subconscious mind can control things on this level. It's like picking up a glass of water. You don't think about how much grip the fingers must exert or how much lift your arm must provide - it just happens because we let it happen. It is learned through feel as there was a time when you were a toddler that picking up a glass of water (or tying your shoes) was quite a challenge; yet we now perform these task on a subconscious level. Thus the reasoning behind Jeff's method - the exaggerated extremes of RO and RI kind of sets where the stops are. Once your mind conceives these stops it then tries to refine the whole range of motion to find ones particular balance point. Some people may have a natural balance that falls in the motion exerted in the RO, some will have it to fall within the RI, some it will be somewhere between. The old saying - get out of the way of the horn and let it play - has merit. Our body wants to achieve the sound concept that we have in our mind if only we will let it.

Kenny Clawson
By clawsonk on I don't get it. on 11/29/10