Trager Trumpet Talk tm
PRESENTS
My Trials and Tribulations on the TRUMPET
(In other words folks, my bio)
When I was four I lost all of my baby teeth. By the time I was nine, I had all of my permanent teeth, including my twelve year old molars. This situation created quite a problem for me. Since my mouth did not have a chance to grow, I had teeth on top of teeth. I wore braces for many years, and my problems playing trumpet didn't occur until the braces were removed. My father, who was a great teacher and trumpet player, always used to say, "stop complaining and just play the horn".
I had an extreme overbite, with teeth on top of other teeth, and my two front upper teeth were crossed in an x formation. I started wearing a full set of braces (top and bottom) with wires, pins, springs, and rubber bands when I was only nine years old. Wearing braces was just an inconvenience for me, it didn’t interfere with my trumpet playing, because I was only playing seriously for only one year before the braces were installed. I learned how to play with an extreme overbite, my horn pointed in a downward angle towards the floor because of my initial "overbite". My teeth straightened, and my bite was corrected to a point where my upper and lower teeth were almost even , BUT my horn still pointed towards the floor. In other words; when my bite was corrected I would pull my jaw inward to maintain the same angle I had before any correction was done to my original bite. My mouthpiece placement was 1/3 top lip, and 2/3 bottom lip, with the inside rim of the mouthpiece a hair above the "red" of my upper lip. I would play with this "set up" until I reached a high Bb with tremendous pressure, then I would stop, pull out my jaw and continue up to a "G" above High C. My father and I went to various teachers in NYC. I would take the lesson, and he would notate everything these teachers espoused. These teachers included Carmine Caruso, Hal Graham, and Roy Stevens. My father benefitted from these teachers, but because of the way I played, nothing seemed to help.
My father and I knew that this was insane but were at a loss for an answer. My father was a great teacher, but it is extremely difficult to teach your "own". It’s very difficult to accept the fact that you are a naturally "great" player, but your son has some sort of embouchure "problem".
At the age of fourteen (with the braces off for the first time), my father decided to send me (in the room by myself after the first two lessons) to a fairly well known trumpet player/teacher to take what amounted to almost two years of private instruction. The first thing that this teacher did was change my mouthpiece placement. He said that I needed more of a grip on the mouthpiece, and had me move the mouthpiece to a higher position on my upper lip. This change resulted in 7 years of anguish. The horn still tilted downward, and the mouthpiece shifted over towards the right side of my lips. I played trumpet with a fuzzy sound, double buzz, absolutely no endurance, and painfully swollen lips. Those two years of lessons also proved, at the time , to be fruitless. I stayed on page 195 of the Arban's Book playing, "Woodman Spare Thy Tree", for the entire two years.
My father realizing how much I wanted to play the trumpet as well as he did, sent me to several more teachers. None of these teachers could tell me what I was doing wrong, infact, one of those teachers told me that I never should have pursued the trumpet because I had a "lip" tag. He suggested that I quit! I read hundreds of method books. I memorized quotes from many "experts" on their various systems. I became a "trumpet geek". I went to many clinics, conferences, and concerts. I interviewed and questioned many great players. I WAS FRUSTRATED!!!!
Finally, in my senior year of college, I had a lucky break. I was told by the chairman of the music department that my present trumpet teacher no longer wanted to teach me. There was a personality conflict, and that particular teacher told the department chairman that I was wasting his time. The reality of the situation was that he could not help me, nor did he want to help me. I was assigned to Carmine Fornurato (at the time he was 2nd chair with the NY Philharmonic) for trumpet lessons. This was a blessing for me!
The first thing Carmine did was force me to hold the trumpet with 2 fingers. Using the fingertips of my thumb and index fingers, I held the horn with my left hand on the bottom half of the valve casing. Then Carmine introduced very soft mouthpiece buzzing - holding the mouthpiece with 2 fingers at the end of the mouthpiece shank. He assigned several exercises that he altered from the Arban Book (I'll get into these exercises later on). Carmine was n't too happy with my improvement, or lack of improvement, and let me know that constantly. Three weeks later he pulled out a visualizer, and noticed that I was pulling apart my lips right before I began the buzz. He kept telling me, say MOM, say MOM, say MOM. I was beginning to lose all hope when......
I came into Carmine's office for my fourth, what I thought would be my final lesson. He said to me, "Play a soft C scale with the 2 finger hold now !" I obliged, and he abruptly told me to stop. In an angry tone he said, "I can't stand watching you play anymore, it's making me sick! Move the mouthpiece to the middle of your chops and play, NOW!!!! "
I told him that I would cut my lip on a sharp tooth edge that I had. He said, " I don't care!!!!! " At this point, I was very nervous, and I began the scale with my lips in the "MOM" position. He kept on shouting, "Keep going, keep going! I kept on going, until I realized that I had played a C scale, and was heading up to a Double C!! I felt very little pressure on my lips, and I had closed my eyes because I wanted to concentrate on keeping my lips in an "M" position. The first thing I saw when I opened my eyes was the bell of my trumpet pointing straight up to the ceiling. My mouthpiece placement was now 1/3 top and 2/3 bottom, the same exact spot that my mouthpiece was 8 years earlier before I had changed my embouchure the first time!
I went home after the lesson really excited about all the events that had occurred. Then it hit me like a rock!! I had a senior jury and recital to perform in 3 weeks! I grabbed the trumpet, and nothing came out. What now? What was I going to do? I couldn't change back because I would lose my primary teacher. I ran downstairs to my father's office while he was teaching a lesson and said in an extremely irritating moan, "What am I going to do?" My father looked me square in the eye and said, "you're going through with the change." Two hours later my father and I sat in his office, and plotted out a schedule of "Caruso" exercises to practice. I called up Carmine Caruso for advice, and he told me to play the 6 notes, 5 - 10 times a day for the first week. It just wasn't the jaw position that was different. The tonguing was different, the lip placement was different. After 1 week the embouchure was beginning to gel. The mouthpiece placement was comfortable, and the tone was opening up. I was on my way.
I still had many questions concerning the extreme upward angle of my horn, and the inconsistencies that would occur. The problem was I never played with the horn angled upwards. Is it too much, is it too little, is it just right? Then to complicate matters, Carmine Fornurato told me that he felt the mouthpiece should be one more "RLH" higher. I asked him what a "RLH" was, and he replied, "Red Lip Hair". What? I just totally changed my embouchure because he couldn't stand watching me play, and now, one week before my recital he wants me to change again? At this point I was floored. Maybe he's right. The mouthpiece was right on the line, but it wasn't going anywhere. Maybe I was using enough pressure, maybe I could try to get the angle of the horn down, so that the mouthpiece placement might elevate itself one more "RLH". Now, I reasoned it was time to head back to Caruso, because I was getting so confused, and I was screwing myself up even further than before.
Carmine Caruso was the best psychologist that I could find. "The sound is not wrong, it's the only one you have right now, it will improve." "The angle of the horn is the way your body wants the angle to be, when the muscles learn what to do the horn angle might change." Upon graduation, I left for Israel to teach music. I had a luxury apartment attached to the Israel Band Music Library. Every night I would walk into the library and practice. I was practicing an average of three hours a day. Things were becoming solid, and I was upbeat eventhough I still felt as if I didn't have a real "finese" at doing certain technique.
I was informed by a fellow teacher about an open trumpet seat with the Haifa Symphonetta. I tried out, and was accepted, UNTIL the director of the Band House found out. He said I had a choice, "Either resign your post with the Symphonetta, or lose all your volunteer benefits, job, and insurance. Well, I thought, this is Israel, and with the unpredictabilitty of the region that I was living, decided it would be best to stay with my teaching position at the Band House.
The time for me to make the decision toleave Israel or become a citizen had come. I opted to return to the US and find a teaching job. One night I was playing a big band job, and faster then I could say abra cadabra, my lip swelled up, and sound ceased to come out of the horn. I thought to myself, it's over, once again it's over. I began to panic. My father said, "I met this great player, he's going for his doctorate at NYU, I'm going to meet him again at the NY Brass Conference, why don't you come with me and talk with him." His name was Edward Lewis, soon to become Dr. Edward Lewis, and he was doing his doctoral disertation on the "study of body posture of 16 virtuosi". We met in his hotel room, and he watched me play. He answered a lot of my questions, and now for the first time I knew what I had to do. I started going to libraries, scouring microfilm, getting books on facial musclature, studying Grey's anatomical drawings of the face, and using myself as a human guinea pig for my own crazy ideas. After four years of experimentation, I finally realized my dream.
Five weeks ago, I had a minor accident which caused a cut to form on the inside of my upper lip. If this had happened twenty years ago, I probably would have gone crazy, but instead I reasoned out the situation, waited 5 days for the cut to heal. When I began to play again, I realized that the area was scarred, and didn't respond without my lip swelling up almost immediately. I had a job coming up in 2 days, so I quickly moved the mouthpiece up, and played for the Forth of July fireworks concert without a problem.
I have learned that if you have an understanding of how the trumpet and brass embouchure works, you can play under most any circumstances.
Currently, I am teaching in a public school by day, and privately in the evenings. I have helped many students that were going down the same path that I travelled for too many years. I freelance when time allows. I know, like my father, that when my time comes, it will be with my trumpet in hand.
- Wayne -
If you have any questions, feel free to e-mail me.
