[Trombone-l] Embouchure

[Jackie Harris-Stone]

Insightful!  I like that!  It makes a lot of sense to me.
   
      I know one of the students I was teaching who radically changed my "don't talk about the embouchure" approach was unable to move his buzz by thinking pitches at all, although he could sing fine, and we had to take a totally manual approach with high notes.  It felt completely against my training, but since it worked....
   
    Suprisingly enough, this wasn't a lack of talent case- he has talent, and is one of the strongest students in the band for now, although unable to take his tuba home to practice (he can't afford one- his family was saving for one, and had to spend it on medical tests insteead). We found out later he was developing a growth in his brain, and shouldn't have been able to function at all, let alone play tuba- so I think this had a lot to do with it.  He just needs to be taught a bit differently.  I've always been glad that I went ahead and took it from the manual side and convinced the band director not to drop him, rather than insist on my method. So's the band director.
   
   
   
   
  "Richardson, Timothy Mr. DAC USAG Franconia DPW" <timothy.a.richardson at us.army.mil> wrote:
  I tend to think one size does not fit all.

One approach to embouchure probably does not work because of the differences
in student physiognomy and current embouchure faults.

But more significant in my mind (and I know others violently disagree) is
that students have different preferred learning styles and very little
ability to change this. This is most obvious when the "Inner Tennis"
teacher meets the analytical style student. Or vice versa. I think it is
very easy to get confused between problems resulting from teaching style and
problems resulting from the wrong embouchure advice. Probably the air vs
chops division splits along the learning style lines. It is easy for a
teacher to teach how and what worked for himself, and have success with the
group of students this works for. The other students drop or fail and move
on. 

I do think that most successful embouchures share common features and
probably can be divided into a three or four main variations. I couldn't
tell you what these are but there are some Reinhardt followers on the list
who might have a starting point. But it might be just as worthwhile to
try to identify the learning style as quickly as possible as to classify the
embouchure. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Jackie Harris-Stone [mailto:bassboneladymail at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 04, 2006 22:05
To: trombone-l at server5.samford.edu
Subject: [Trombone-l] Embouchure




Jackie Harris-Stone
Bass Trombone, Orquesta Sinfonica de Monterrey 
Professor of Trombone, Escuela Superior de Musica y Danza, 
Professor of Low Brass, UANL
		
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