Playing Horn is Like Golf

From a come back player:

Valerie,

We were watching a movie about golf tonight during dinner. The theme of it was that everyone has their own swing, unlike anyone else’s which they have to find in order to play well. That led me to think about how I had been experimenting with thinking about Mozart One, 1st movement. How was I going to play each note: pitch, how to tongue it, what fingering to use, where was I coming from, where was I going? The piece represents a milestone for me for reasons I'll explain some other time.

It was an exhausting experiment. It took me forty minutes to get through the piece. Then I played it through with out stop, and found that I had decreased the number of errors, chipped notes, etc by at least half, and those errors were because I hadn't sufficiently internalized the decisions I had made during the earlier practice.

I am starting to think that the really great players do the same thing, but do it so quickly, as to make it seem that they are "naturals." Someone once told me that there is less difference between the results that amateurs can achieve versus professionals, than how long it takes them to achieve the same result. I always liked that, because it gave me hope that with sufficient effort, I could achieve the results I desire. Needless to say the horn is providing a daunting challenge to that aspiration.

Well, some aspirations take longer than others. I tried a trill in einsetzen tonight, and the best I can report is that I think it is possible. Lest you laugh, that is a huge leap for me. I never thought before BE that I could play above the pedals in einsetzen. BE is showing me that the operative part of the word "assume" is the first three letters. That's what you make of yourself if you don't ever challenge what you think you know. I love the quote you have about the person who thought the concept was stupid, and then found out who was really stupid. Been there done that.

I also learned today that I haven't spent nearly enough time earnestly working on lip slurs. Is it too late for New Year's resoulutions?

Doug

The Notion of Unifying the Embouchure

The BE development system has exercises in two main categories: (1) the extreme roll-out which favors low notes, (2) the extreme roll-in which favors high notes. The exercises challenge the player to push the envelop of embouchure function by extending the range within the categories. The roll-out embouchure exercises start on double pedals and ascend as far as possible upwards with the roll-out set up. The roll-in exercises mirror image this by extending use of the roll-in embouchure into the lowest possible range.

The goal of BE is to use these and other exercises, plus specific tonguing and breathing techniques to give the brass player the technical skill to use a continuous flexing of the lips to navigate the full range of the instrument minimizing and ultimately eliminating awkward embouchure changes.

In the quote below, David G. aptly described this goal as "unifying the embouchure" in his memory of a past insight that embodies a key principle of the BE development system:

For some unknown reason . . . I remembered that years ago someone wrote to the horn list about having a break in embouchure somewhere in the midst of our tessitura - a point where he/she had to change embouchures. I wrote in to recommend practicing playing a simple scale from the bottom to see where the break occurred, then playing a scale from the top down to see where the break occurred, and assuming that there was overlap - there had to be - that it was worthwhile to extend those breakpoints as much as possible until it might happen that there would no longer be any break point. There was a bit of other advice, but the one that stood out in my mind was the one that pooh-poohed the notion of unifying the embouchure. Well, that's a chortle. I guess the idea was a very primitive first pass at BE.
David

Thanks for sharing, David.

Feedback from a 3rd year Horn Student of BE

Kyra is the second horn player I shared BE with over three years ago. When we met, she had been playing horn for about 7 years. At the time, Kyra and I had several things in common: limited range, limited endurance, rotten tone and a strong desire to improve! We used to kid around about being the gals in the band who "pretended to be horn players!" Kyra is a busy mom and music educator who is limited in the amount of time she can devote to practicing, but she has disciplined herself to include BE exercises into her daily routine. I've enjoyed watching tiny Kyra, maybe 100 pounds soaking wet, grow into an strong horn player with a nice big sound and formidable range. Below is a message I received from Kyra in response to a "BE for French Horn" email I recently distributed.

Valerie,

Thanks for the info! I am still practicing BE, and I still love it! My low register is 1000 times better!! I can hit a double pedal C any day, any time. Still working on my upper register, still can't hit a High D all the time, but High C is always there.

Kyra

Sheesh, Kyra! Too bad about that unreliable High D, but I think you're doing just fine. I also think you're a real horn player now! Thanks for sharing your success with other horn players!

Valerie

Horn Players, Beware!

Doug, a trombone player, decided to take up French horn 4+ years ago. New to BE, he's coming on strong, so horn players beware! With Doug's permission, I'm sharing an email I received from him yesterday.

Valerie,

What I'm noticing is that everything feels better. This is how it used to feel when I was playing all the time, chops in great shape, and fearless about going for notes. Kamakazi horn if you will. I've been inspired by Bruno (what a great name for a horn player) and got out the Mozart Horn quintet. The last time I attempted it, it was pure struggle, today it was approachable. The thing that just made me set my horn down in awe, was that eight bars from the end there is a high C eighth note approached from a C an octave lower and followed by eighth note D a seventh lower. That sucker popped out like I'd been doing it all my life. It was so much fun I did it five more times.

I used to belong to a new age church that taught us to visualize and believe in what we wanted to do, before it manifested itself. So sometimes I'm a dreamer. My dream is to sit amongst four strings, in my tux, forty pounds lighter, and blow everyone away with my definitive rendition of the Mozart Horn quintet. What do you think? Well, OK. Like I said, I'm a dreamer.

OH. GOOD HEAVENS! You are going to laugh at me. I just realized that this piece is for Horn in Eb. I've been playing it in F! I'm going to have to turn in my IHS membership card as they paint a yellow stripe down my back and drum me out of the corps and confiscate my 8D! Later. I have to go try this again.

Doug

The Embouchure and Cherry Picking

I liken the embouchure to a cherry orchard. You’ve got 300 trees, but only some make sweet cherries. Your job as a cherry picker is to find and pick only the sweetest cherries. It will take quite some time to sample the fruit of all 300 trees, so you need an easy-to-use system to enable you to quickly locate and remember the best cherry producing trees before the season is over. If you approach the orchard randomly you are sure to miss some trees, check others redundantly, and forget where the best fruit is found.

The embouchure is like a cherry orchard because there are hundreds of lip shapes (trees) possible, but not all will produce the desired notes (sweetest cherries). The Balanced Embouchure (BE) is a system that enables you to explore all possible lip shapes in a short period of time, with enough built-in repetition to store the memory of the most desirable note-producing shapes into both the mind and the muscle. It sounds complex, but BE is so simple, children master it.

The Balanced Embouchure systematically challenges the embouchure (or scans the orchard) in these important ways: (1) to play from as low as possible to as high as possible on an a “low note” embouchure, (2) to play from as high as possible to as low as possible on a “high note” embouchure, (3) tonguing with a rolled-out embouchure and (4) tonguing with the rolled-in embouchure, (5) an articulation/breathing challenge for accuracy and stability of attacks (snaps), (6) a breathing/articulation challenge to encourage tone support of individual notes, and (7) a breathing challenges to encourage support of the tone through phrases (specific crescendos). The basic Roll-Out and Roll-In exercises provide all this (and more) in a tidy, user friendly package that only takes about 12 to 20 minutes to execute.

The BE system is an organized plan for scanning all the possible shapes an embouchure can produce. The Roll-Out and Roll-In exercises are for locating and identifying the lip shapes that produce desirable notes. The Advanced Lip Slurs develop speed and efficiency to smoothly move from one desirable shape to the next.

To further abuse the cherry orchard analogy: BE is the plan that provides an organized method for checking every tree in the orchard. Roll-Out and Roll-In exercises are the part of the plan that provides a ladder to climb each tree to sample its fruit. The Advanced Lip Slurs are like providing a motorized cherry lift that makes quick work of gathering the sweetest cherries.

I hope this helps horn players better understand the purpose and value of each BE exercise as well as the entire BE development system. Understanding this should help the BE student appreciate that BE is greater than the sum of its parts. Practicing any one single exercise will provide benefits to the embouchure, but working the whole system is the surest way to achieve the maximum results of The Balanced Embouchure is designed to deliver.

Valerie Wells

Fear and the Embouchure

"Fear is a great multiplier of embouchure problems," wrote Jeff Smiley on the Trumpet Herald Balanced Embouchure Forum.
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Below is a private email I received from CM, one of our fellow BE students that plays horn. CM's experience perfectly demonstrates how fear can interfere with embouchure function and what can be done to alleviate it. I believe CM's insights and coping strategies can be a valuble example for us all, so with her permission I share them below. I'm grateful that CM is allowing us this treasured glimpse into the intimate side of her horn playing life. [Location details removed.]

"Hello Valerie, ... I just came back from [the city] shows last night. We had 4 shows, I did very well for two, not so great for two. I don't think it was due to my embouchure. My embouchure worked very well. I think for the last show I did not do well, it was due to my mental tension. Our top manager came our show last night. I was nervous for some reason, therefore, I felt my fingers and lips were a little "out of control" for a few moments. When I focused on the music only, I was back normal.
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"During those days in [the city] (even on the day we had two shows) I kept practicing BE. I want to feel confident that my embouchure was strong enough. I got up very early in the morning to practice BE. And when everyone was practicing during the day, I meditated Falun Gong to rest myself. It worked very well. I see your point about RI#3 and #4 and RO#4. I also applied my horn teacher's method--singing the notes. I tried to sing the notes and forget about embouchure or lip change--let the lips to do the RI and RO by itself. It worked well when I was very focused on the music.
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"Overall, I am happy with my tone and volume for the shows during the tour. I still need to work hard on RI/RO coordination and range. The other day I found Wagner's Long Call was a good exercise for "melting" RI/RO. I will keep working on it. Thanks again. Take care,CM"

Hooray for the come-back player!

This came from Theodore Greaves:

"Thanks. I'm a comeback player of 3 years. With the help of BE I have gained lower range I never had at my best in the early 70's , and I have been playing well above high C like I did 35 years ago. Never thought it would happen. Ted"

Thanks, Ted. This makes me smile!

Valerie Wells