Posted by C on February 21, 2008 at 19:52:24:
In Reply to: Trumpets not playing higher than a D above Middle C posted by Melinda on February 21, 2008 at 09:44:45:
Have them try buzzing "siren" sounds with just the mouthpiece - for a visual, draw a curvy line on a piece of paper or the chalkboard, going up and down like mountains or a rollercoaster. As you trace the line with your finger, have them "ride the rollercoaster" with their buzzing. When they can play "little hills" with some consistency, challenge them to climb up bigger hills. Then, see if they can buzz a familiar song on their mouthpiece - something that they would know really well like Mary Had a Little Lamb, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, even work toward Happy Birthday as a challenge. They might not be able to do that octave jump accurately but if they are trying it might get them going in the right direction! (Just FYI - my private teacher in high school had me buzz a lot of my exercises before playing them on the horn. It really helps to build a good sense of pitch because you have to use your ear and embouchure, not rely on the horn to make the notes come out. He learned this technique from his teacher, who played with the Philly Orch.!) After they can get some good difference in pitch with just the moutpiece, then put them back on the horn and see if they can get up any higher, just on open - see if they can slur between C and G, then tongue different rhythm patterns on both of these notes... once they can get G consistently then try other notes with valves. Try to get them to play a series of notes all on one pitch - if they have the control to stay on the same pitch for several tongued notes, then they might be ready to read music where they have to change pitches. Do most of this by rote at first, so that they are concentrating on tone production and the muscles of the embouchoure rather than complicating things with staff reading. Of course they will be a little behind the other students for a while, but it seems like they're already behind and need this extra work to build up their embouchures and work on basic tone production.
: I have a handful of first year trumpet players (and some second year players) who just are not getting the right partials. I've tried lots of different analagies, one of the schools I go to has even had several sectionals and they just are not getting anything. They are finally getting different pitches and there IS improvement in some, but just getting an E above middle C is a HUGE challenge let alone anything higher. Does anyone have any suggestions on how I can better teach this? My main instrument is flute, but I can get to an E top space on the trumpet and I usually play trumpet along with my beginners (6th grade).