BE for French horn Poster Child!

I just received this email from Keren in Sydney. Keren's experience in her first two weeks with BE is as close as can be to being text book perfect. Keren could be the BE for French horn poster child! Here is her testimonial:

Hi Valerie

Just thought you might like an update on how things are progressing.

It's been just over two weeks since I received the BE book - I've been practising pedal notes & lip clamps/squeaks every day and all of a sudden just now I've noticed some progress - When I picked up my horn today I suddenly found I could hit a high c - not just one - but over and over and without all the mouthpiece pressure. So I am thrilled! I just hope that it works tomorrow too!

I could already play the pedal notes quite easily - but the roll in embouchure was a
challenge - For two weeks I've been making primitive airy erratic squeaks (Goodness knows what the neighbours think) Very occasionally, out of the blue, I would hit a high note which felt good - but I could never repeat it. I kept re reading the book and the BE info on the internet was very helpful too. Anyway the persistence seems to be paying off. I've noticed that air pockets seem to make the big difference for me - it was helpful to see the youtube videos on the trumpet teacher website of players with big air pockets.

So now that I can hit the high notes I need to try and tame them - also my head has to get used to all of this - I get very lightheaded and headachey when I play the high
notes. Lip clamps are a good exercise to do while driving - but lip squeaks make me too giddy - so I thought I better be careful with those!

Anyway - now that I can play high notes with the roll in embouchure I'm looking forward to working on the exercises properly.

I'm so glad I stumbled across BE on the internet. I'm very impressed with how well the book is written - How precisely it describes the mechanics of working out your own effective personalised embouchure - I'll certainly be recommending it to any brass players I know.

Thanks for your help - I'm enjoying the feeling that high notes don't have to be a no go zone anymore!

Kind regards

Keren

Love Stories

Most of the comments I post on this blog are related to honists' success in overcoming the technical aspects of horn playing. The following two messages are little different. These unsolicited comments were sent me in emails expressing tender feelings of why the writers study the horn.

The first is from Doug Wagner who has a professional background in low brass, but now pursues the illusive horn tone with passion.

I think it was Barry Tuckwell that wrote that the F side is very inefficient in terms of the way the instrument is built. Somehow the physics of the instrument make it more difficult to create a centered tone that can be played without danger of splitting and chipping, BUT --- that's what gives the instrument its great sound. I'm working more and more on the F side because the sound is so much better in the low and middle ranges. In some cases, I play on the F side even into the higher register, because there is a subtle but very real difference in the tone quality. For many years, I wrote arrangements that featured the horn because I loved the sound so much. As a player, I'm constantly striving for that great horn sound. When I make it, it is such a thrill!

The horn is the greatest instrument ever. It stands to reason that it would be more difficult than all the others, otherwise anyone could play it. And even though I know I'll never be the master of it, the joy is in the pursuit. And every once in a while, it's just pure magic. When I create that gorgeous sound, even for a moment, it's what keeps me going.

Last Sunday [my two children] and I played an arrangement I wrote at a recital. What a great time we had! The piece was well received and we had fun. It was such a thrill to play with my kids! What fine young persons they are. My proud Poppa buttons were bursting! It was worth every agonizing minute I have spent wrestling with the horn, all the times of self doubt and discouragement just to be able to play competently along with my kids. There is a tremendous thrill at seeing my children grow into young adults and excel at something I have loved so much.

I let music go for a long time because I burned out. Now that I've re-kindled, it's even more fun. I'm listening to music again and finding more enjoyment than ever. What a marvelous thing to experience. I loved [my daughter's]answer when I asked her if she wanted to major in music. Her reply was, "What else would I do?"

Indeed.

Doug

The second quotation is from Larry Jellison, a retired engineer who returned to his childhood sweetheart, the horn, a little over 10 years ago.

Hi Val,

Just checking horn playing on Youtube, came across this performance. ... I could guess the shape of the horn bell by listening. It is a medium belled horn. The recording is enhanced with some reverb. He is able to play high without becoming shrill. I admire this recording, because it focuses on what horn playing should be-- total beauty of the sound of the horn. I'm encouraged that one thing musicians like us can do is achieve an incredibly beautiful horn tone. I had just finished listening to Mason Jones on the Internet play Chabrier, using a large belled horn. Much
different sound, yet still total beauty. I think Mason played an 8D.
Articulation becomes different with a large belled horn, more difficult, but the
challenge is to find an articulation that stays true to the characteristics of the horn without sounding sluggish.
Titanic:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wek4b4pfPjI&feature=related
Mason
Jones:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-36ynieLPw

Larry

Looks can Deceive

Here's a splendid example of why we should not try to look like someone else when we play the horn:

Hi Valerie,

When I play I have a RI (rolled in) feel and when I look in a mirror at my embouchure it is still significantly RO (rolled out) . . . and that is up to high F with a
strong sound up to high E! That is weird, but h--- it works ;-)

Guillaume

Comment from Jonathan West:

I've had discussions with Lyle Sanford that touch on this issue. In orchestra rehearsals, conductors talk about what they want from the strings in terms of tone. They describe the techniques to be used - heel or tip of the bow, pressure vs bow speed, start on or off the string. Likewise percussionists have a well-established vocabulary for their techniques - stick speed and weight, whereabouts on the surface to strike the drum, hardness of stick etc. But for wind players, there isn't that same vocabulary of techniques. The vocabulary is more about effects than techniques. This is because what goes on for a wind player is internal (air support, tonguing etc) or consists of minute outwardly imperceptible changes around the lips. And I rather suspect that everybody visualises what is going on internally and with the lips a bit differently - and almost all the visualisations are wrong to some degree. This is probably why, if BE works for you, you can't quite tell why or how. What you See more... think is going on is probably different from what is really going on. But that doesn't matter all that much. What matters is whether the visualisation involved works for you!
By Jonathan West on Looks can Deceive on 10/14/10

BE can Revolutionize Teaching

Steve Park began studying BE 7 months ago. He related that Andrew Joy originally recommended he investigate it. Steve said he was intrigued by Jeff Smiley's website because it described the way he had been playing for years. Steve hoped to use BE to improve his students' embouchures. Below is a letter Steve recently wrote to a horn colleague about BE.

Just in case anyone reading this has never seen or heard Steve Park play, here are links to two of his outstanding youtube videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2J9cvNRs1U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OA-CIwRw6Qk

Hey M---, Last Monday I taught my first lessons of the new year at Utah State University. I have a new student who is a music major. She is on scholarship and plays really well. Her embouchure is set up a lot like yours. She sets the rim of the mouthpiece into her lower lip a little bit. Her high range tops out at around a G or A on a good day she said. I showed her the rolled in exercises and yesterday at her 2nd lesson she played several easy high C's. I was amazed that she figured it out so quickly and she was delighted. She said "this is fun!" She took lessons all through high school and no one ever showed her this stuff. I have another new student who also took lessons all through high school from Bruce Woodward, who is a good teacher. His low range was aweful. He could barely get the C below middle C and it was weak and
unstable. I showed him the rolled out exercises for low playing and at his lesson yesterday he played a pedal F. He said that he had never gotten anywhere near that note before. I think I said to you last Sunday that these strategies and exercises have revolutionized my teaching. I look forward to the lessons because I know how to help the students and every one of them is making great progress. I have 25 students and only one of them can't yet play a high C and a pedal F or lower. (I just started her on the exercises last week as well. I'm sure that she will be there in a few weeks or sooner.) Contact Valerie Wells and order the book and exercises. Then we can get together and I will show you what I have been doing with my students. You are about to become a high horn playing maniac!!!

Steve

Flat Chin: Andrew Joy Sets the Record Straight!

Andrew wishes to set the record straight about his chin:

Hi Valerie, I was working in the orchestra this week and only now got around to reading your blog. I was surprised to read that I play with a flat chin. I don't know where that opinion comes from. It is definitely not mine. My former teacher in Cologne, Erich Penzel is really big on the flat chin (or was in my time with him). My limit, using his method, was a high B flat and on a good day, like when I won the Cologne audition, I could squeeze out a passable high C.

A couple of years later whilst preparing Daphnes and Chloe for a German tour with the orchestra, I stumbled on the roll in technique when ascending. Subsequent investigation revealed Barry Tuckwell (in the Farkas book) doing the same. Since I was a great fan of Barry's playing, I assumed I was onto something important.

Those days I didn't make the further connection of the tongue touching (and supporting) the bottom lip. I then got completely off track preparing and recording the Ligeti Trio and actually hurt my bottom lip. An injury thereafter, a blister in the middle of my bottom lip with a tiny hole in the middle of it, led me to talking with a trumpet colleague who introduced me to Jerome Callet. Which led to Jeff Smiley and BE.

Looks can be deceiving. I am acutely aware of the "FEELING" difference between a flat and a bunched chin. My "FEELING" when playing these days is definitely bunched.

Best wishes,
Andrew Joy

Thank you, my dear friend Andrew, and my sincerest apologies for misrepresenting your agile chin! Your point is well made and well taken.

Here are links to a couple interesting interviews with Andrew.

http://hornmatters.com/2010/09/joy-on-the-balanced-embouchure/

http://high-c.com/content/andrew-joy-horn-nerves-and-water-keys

Valerie Wells

I Don't Get It

I'm my previous article, Jonathan describes what he calls a “huge breakthrough” from doing the Roll-Out exercises (RO). He believes he was prompted or guided to change his embouchure set-up in the right direction by something he experienced while practicing RO. Jonathan's experience is consistent with stories Jeff Smiley has shared about trumpet players whose embouchures were transformed through practicing only the RO.

I understand that RO can and does improve embouchures, often in dramatic ways. What I don't get is HOW it is done. The mechanics of this process escape my reasoning ability. I can only postulate that the trumpet players Jeff talks about, like Jonathan, were missing some weighty element on one end of the range of motion spectrum. Adding RO provided the needed weight that brought “balance” to their chops. It's a nice & tidy sounding theorem, but what does this mean in a mechanical nuts & bolts way inside the mouthpiece? I don't know.

When I started BE, I experienced a "huge breakthrough" directly from the RI exercises. It was easy for me to see, feel and understand the connection: roll in, play higher, clearer & stronger on a firmer part of the lips! Tadah! But for me, exactly HOW Roll Out exercises can produce similar and dramatic improvements remains the mysterious part of BE. Seeing results such as JP and others have had with RO proves to me that BE is more than just rolling in for high and out for low. The opposing forces of RO and RI as well as other maneuvers in BE merge to produce something greater than these do when used singularly.

I’m glad I don’t have to understand the inner workings of the embouchure to help myself and other horn players improve. It’s satisfying enough to know I can help others by simply encouraging them to do the exercises. That's easy. Like Doug Wagner writes: "Spend the time, do the exercises. It works."

Below are responses and insights to what I've written above:

I don't get it.--oh, yes you do!

This does make sense. I agree with your postulate. I would take it even farther by speculating that BE allows one to search for one's best embouchure in ways that mysteriously could involve more than just RI and RO adjustments: for examples, it could allow one to feel for one's best inner-cup embouchure that Farkas writes about; it could allow one to adjust the vertical alignment of the lips; it could allow one to discover that embouchure position could be more dynamic and changeable than we usually think of it as being-- I know that I don't always play with the exact same embouchure, that through BE practice, my lip positions are more versatile to move around a bit similar to an experienced baseball pitcher being able to change his body and arm positions in throwing pitches (I love the comparison of a horn player hitting a note to a baseball pitcher throwing a strike!). Why would I move my lip positions around? Well, for us older folks and those on medications, I find that my lips aren't the same everyday; indeed, my lips change during a single playing session, and I need to make slight embouchure adjustments to accommodate lip swelling and other idiosyncratic lip changes. As a youth I never seemed to need to deal with changeable lips, or, at least, I wasn't aware of it at the time.

If we aren't crazy to decide to play the horn, we eventually become crazy as we learn to play the horn.

Larry
--------
Understanding how RO exercises can make an embouchure work better, even on high register, can be a challenge. I got myself the most benefits from RO practicing, but I am not sure I really understand how it works. I have clues but may not get the whole picture. Three months after starting on BE, I was able to play up to high F when practicing RO#4. I had a big week of rehearsal and concert, very tiring, after which I lost this ability to play higher than High C. After a few months of patience, it is back, but with a slightly bigger proportion of RI, and a much better connection with the rest of my range. It is hard to catch for our analytical minds, but even my high F on the horn and even my high F on the trumpet show some elements of RO.

I think it is hard to understand mainly because the perfect RO set up is not that easy to find, and the RO feel is harder to get on the horn with our narrow rim mouthpieces. I really feel RO much better on the trumpet with a more cushioned rim. Also, on the horn, we tend to associate RO with soft lips, and relaxed muscles, whereas I believe RO relies more on firm lips than we would believe.
Guillaume
--------------
This seems to directly contradict the understanding you showed when pointing out that RI is not just for high notes, and RO is not just for low notes. ...it sounds remarkably contradictory to the strongly-worded essay you posted on why RI does not equal high notes. Maybe its just me, but I have a difficult time getting that contradiction out of my mind.

The actual shape of the lips dictate how much RI or RO is required. For some players, with a particular lip architecture, both lips rolled out could actually facilitate high notes, as they have a double fold of inner lip tissue which acts as the vibrating surface. Other players actually use the tongue in place of the lower lip with great success. Both conditions are rare, however.

Jeff Smiley
------------------
Hi Valerie - one of the great things about BE is that it does not purport to be a one size fits all thing. It's ok to roll out more than roll in...if that works for you...and vice versa. One of the problems some folks have with previous attempts at technical codification is that their successes were sometimes devalued because they were 'doing it wrong'.
It's kind of like what Duke Ellington said about music - 'there are two kinds of music...good music and bad music.'
We could go on for a LOOOOONG time about how today's success can often be breeding tomorrow's failure - short cuts and dead ends and all that. But in the end, our audience does not care 'how' we do what we do...they simply prefer excellence over mediocrity...music over technical display.
The horn and brass in general are difficult...but we often make it more difficult than it is by our desire to know - to the nth degree - every why, where, and how.
Sandra Clark, Toledo Symphony Orchestra
Back to home.

"Huge Breakthrough" with Roll-Out Exercises

This made my day! Read what Jonathan just wrote to me.....

So here is the latest in my saga...I have recently changed my embouchure setting to put more top lip in the mouthpiece and setting the rim on the bottom lip; it is completely different than my old setting which was apparently all wrong, because I have seen an almost overnight improvement in endurance, accuracy, mobility and slurs. It has also allowed me to play fff in the mid and low registers and add some edge when needed. I cannot play the high register with this setting (yet). I believe that this new setting is a result of the RO exercises, and it is probably what most other players are using, but since it is hard for them to describe what they are doing, and you can't see inside the mouthpiece while they're playing, I never realized that I was using a setting that was inefficient and holding back my progress. I feel like this is a huge breakthrough for me!

I keep forgetting that BE does not prescribe an "ideal" setting, just what works, and BE helps you find that.... apparently BE has done that for me; I NEVER would have even thought of playing with this new setting. So, this new setting is like riding a stallion; it has raw power and grace, I just have harness it. My practice now is aimed at getting the "feel" of each note with the new setting...

I KNEW that there was something fundamental that I was doing wrong, the symptoms told me that... unfortunately no one but you and BE steered me in the right direction. I got the classic list of solutions from teachers, friends and pros, none of which (important as they each are) got to the heart of the problem.... you need more air, you're too tight, too loose, too puckered, too smiley, too much pressure, not enough pressure, too much practice, not enough practice, not enough support, wrong mouthpiece, wrong horn, it's mental.... believe me it was MAKING me mental!!! Not any more.... I'm loving my practices.... thanks Val, you're the best!

Jonathan

Thanks, but Jeff Smiley deserves the credit! All I did was provide the book and a little encouragement to stick with the program.

Valerie

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