How I Gained An OCTAVE Of Range In No Time (and how you can too)

0:00 - Coming Up...
0:22 - Intro
1:26 - My Story
6:18 - Guide
10:50 - Lip Trills
14:30 - Outro

#trumpet #band #trumpeter #musician #marchingband #musician #orchestra #bandkids #music #fyp #foryou #4u

[perrydarmond]

Old man trumpet player here. I found that playing octave jumps helps me maintain the same embouchure between high and low notes. Nothing worse than having to reposition your lips on the mouthpiece depending on range. I usually do short notes, starting from middle staff G to top of the staff G and ascending chromatically to what is comfortable.

[NahILoselol]

As an 8th grade trumpet player who wants to make trumpet my career, I needed this.

[wjasjs]

Thank you for such a great explanation!

[nicholaslipsette]

Gigging Lead tpt here:

While I dont do much of the physical analysis, I think these ideas may be able to help you and others out.
As you said, the tone is always #1! Know what you want to sound like and try your best to imitate that sound. The music you listen to will mold you as a player. You're not going to sound like Maynard if you've never listened to him!
Relaxation is key. I find my range tighten as I tense up, and relaxed playing helps me maintain both a good sound, an even breath, and keep the energy going for longer.
Everything on the tpt is backward! If you want to improve your high register, practice your low register. Before going into Grad school, I couldn't play well below a C. I began practicing pedal tones (with proper technique!) and my upper register got more solidified as well as expanding some. Practice going from low register (chromatically) to high maintaining a good sound. As you're going up, think down. While going down, think up. Helps land on the high notes and encourages support as you go down.

Hope this helps!

[vaderzip]

I’m a freshmen looking to get GOATED at trumpet, and I’ve been watching your videos for a while and wanted to say thank you for this helpful video. I’m terrible with high notes, so this will help me a lot.

[heyimsilence]

I’m not a trumpet player but I am an aspiring music teacher and I have to say this video is perfect. It’s weird to think that singing helps your playing but it’s so perfect for playing high on trumpet. I wish everyone knew this

[gregorysloat]

I hope I’m wrong, but it looks like your corners are spreading wider as you ascend. We call that the “smile” method. If you AREN’T doing that you can ignore the rest of what follows.
OK, if that’s what you’re doing, as your corners pull back, they thin out your lips, and that will give you limited success for awhile, but it really punishes your lips, and tends toward using too much pressure. Instead, if as you ascend, you bring your corners in (SLIGHTLY!), or at least hold them the same, as if you were pursing your lips, or pushing them forward or out away from your teeth (and it’s all a lot more subtle than this, but I’m trying to describe it in a way where you can “get” the concept), what happens is your lips create a little more cushion as you ascend. If you also keep your corners firm, but try to keep your lips that are inside the rim of the mouthpiece relaxed, as you blow faster air, you should find ascending in your range is easier. As you go higher, the notes are “closer together, ” so you need to develop the coordination to produce them accurately. You do this by practicing them very softly, as softly as you can, and still make a good sound. Once you have developed that coordination and control, you can “step on the gas” and increase your dynamics. I like to practice octave slurs from third space C to high C, in the treble clef (I’ll do about three slurs, up and back down), and then go up chromatically, to however high I can go without struggling. You don’t want to add in any tension. So, between octave jumps, I might also add in some lower octave notes, for example after doing a few middle C to high C slurs, I may play a long tone low C (it depends on how my chops are feeling and responding). I’ll also practice chromatic runs of two octaves (or more, if I can) up and back down, trying to maintain the same embouchure setup, using the air (and tongue arch) to do the work. It helped my range a lot. Everyone is different, and if you ask ten people how they developed their range, you might get ten answers, though they may be using different descriptions to describe similar concepts. So, experiment and see if something works or doesn’t, or makes playing easier, or doesn’t. Sound is everything, but I’ll end with the old saying that “today’s squeaks are tomorrow’s notes.

[reinaldomartinez]

Literally the perfect video for me, I've been struggling with range for a minute and while I came to the same conclusions you did, through trial and error, you perfectly summed up and condensed the information into a digestible way for almost anyone.

You confirmed that I truly am on the right track and after combinging all of the elements in the video I can play from a high c to high F/E !! It's now just working on mastering it now !

[radiant]

11:30 describes basically my whole life with the trumpet as of now lmao
just suddenly being able to do stuff without any explanation and I just gotta roll with it

[JumboShrimpYt]

10th grader here getting ready to audition for some honor bands. You are the best dude. High c is my comfortable range but i have faith that this will help. Thank you

[RustyKloud]

While this is very personal to you, unintentionally I think you cover so many of the golden pieces of advice surrounding modern range development in a really convincing way. You mentioned singing and keeping vowel shape, which helps to keep the tongue out of the way, something I’ve heard from the Arnold Jacob school of thought. You mentioned having to make small changes in horn angle which goes hand in hand with Paul Mayes’ holistic approach. You cover vocal cords’ similarities to facial muscles which Kristian Steenstrup has been a big advocator of. And you really paraphrase Chris Coletti’s video extremely well. Max, I’ve said it before, but I seriously think you’re going to make a kickass trumpet professor because of your commitment to improvement and willingness to share. Keep it up brother!

[ericlohmann]

Thank you so much for this. I'm going to be a lead trumpet player next year for my high school band and pursue trumpet as my career and so far this has been very helpful.

[isaac.chege]

Thanks mahn. You don't know how you have helped me 😢 I really struggled with high notes. Thanks so much.

[moondust]

I've been playing the trumpet for 14 years now, i could play a high c with a somewhat good sound, but this video is exactly what i needed!
I was way too tense, even in the lower register. Thank you so much! 😁

[PabloAlvarez]

I’ve used this method for a while now and less than a year ago, I could only play a high g and now I’m playing a triple high F and a triple high c consistently (7th grade, playing for 4 years now)

[winstonbeede]

Your lips act the same as a string. For them to resonate higher you have to either change their length or tension. The tendency for your mouthpiece to shift upwards is an attempt to reduce the length of the resonating part of the lip. Air is an important factors however all it is doing is giving sufficient energy to allow the lips to resonate. I am a trombone player so not quite the same however the physics of how all brass instrument is the same. I had a sectional with the first trumpet of the first trumpet of the NAC (the biggest symphony orchestra in Canada) and she introduced me to an interesting new idea. That idea is to treat lip training the same as any other muscle, she does isometrics of the horn simply to develop the necessary musculature needed to achieve the required lip tension.

To be clear I am using you/your to refer to people in general (including myself) and am not directing this at anyone. I simply want to express through a slightly more scientific lens how register is achieved as I found this approach helped me have a more profound understanding of the different variables affecting tone and range.

[RB-rsoh]

10:21 this is absolutely true, I’m a junior in high school who went from playing high D above the staff to double D in 3-4 months. I bought the lynn Nicholson x piece and had to change my whole embouchure to get any sound out, but once I could play high notes on that mouthpiece I could play high notes on any regarding the size.

[chairslife]

I'm not a trumpet player. I'm actually a tenor sax player, but I am learning trombone, and I was having a whole lot of troubles playing the Bb scale. Iy was only the high notes, and this started helping a whole lot thank you🙏

[chancelong]

On good days I could barley play a high a, but I never realized how important tightening your lips were until now. Now, I’m
Able to play up to a high e and got a glimpse of a double g as a sophomore in high school, thank you for this video.

[justuss]

What you describe is along the lines of the traditional Farkas embouchure which is still taught most pro classical players, but IMHO very inefficient. Works great to high C, but I've rarely heard players play with little effort and loud in the upper register and certainly not amateurs using it. I recommend using the tongue near the aperture and engaging the chin muscle (while keeping the face relaxed).