So, what's in Broken Embouchures? Here are a few excerpts.
Chapter 1 Just Having a Bad
Day--or Is It Really a Chop Problem?
The "Embouchure Twilight Zone"
“About
three weeks ago I was very stiff from an excessive amount of practicing
the day before. The next two days I continued to play as usual.
The third day, my sound was full of air, and I had no ability to play
softly. I took three days off and tried to play again. After
playing for two days, it was obvious that something was still very
wrong.; I decided to take the last month of the season off,
canceling all sorts of solo concerts as well. It was all pretty
embarrassing and upsetting. It's been over two weeks that I
haven't touched my horn. I thought in another week that I would try
buzzing. There is still a prominent scar on the inside of my top
lip.
“My symptoms are as
follows: 1. localized pain at the point where the mouthpiece contacts my
upper lip where the pink of the lip borders the white skin above,
usually on the right side of my embouchure but occasionally on the left
2. swelling of the upper lip. The impact on my playing: diminished
flexibility and response, dull sound, difficulty in centering pitch,
harder to play in extreme registers, etc. Like many horn players,
I had occasional minor bruising or a "fat lip" which I was able to
overcome with a day or two of rest until about two years ago when I hurt
myself particularly badly during a very heavy week. I went to see my
doctor who referred me to a local ear, nose and throat man who put me on
prednisone. After a week off, I went back to playing and quickly
re-injured myself, forcing myself to have to take more sick leave. Since
then, my symptoms have come and gone with regularity, depending on the
heaviness of my schedule.”
There are no Disabled
Lists for instrumental players. No one will get up before a
performance to announce the names and ailments of all of the distressed
musicians on stage. Musicians have to suffer their discomforts
silently with no merit badges for playing under duress. We’re just
expected to play well regardless of how lousy everything feels, and, in
large part, that’s what we expect of ourselves.
No one can begin to understand what it’s like to
play and perform in pain or with a dysfunctional embouchure unless he
has personally experienced it. When a player’s embouchure stops working
comfortably, playing is reduced to a terrifying effort, requiring much
more mental and physical energy. Unfortunately, it is within this
confused, emotional prison that a player is faced with figuring out
what’s not right and how to fix what he cannot figure out.
Unraveling the mystery becomes an even greater burden when one’s career
and livelihood are on the line. What is it? What caused it?
Will it ever go away?
Chapter 4 Embouchure Speak
A Translation of the Most Common Physical and
Playing Symptoms
“I have had the same problem with my chops
for years. When I play too much or too loud, the tiny part of the inside
upper lip that actually vibrates gets irritated. It seems that
after a while the skin just simply can't take the vibrations.
Playing loud seems to be the real culprit. A bump kind of
raises and I can feel it with my tongue. Then I know I'm in
trouble and I have to really back off. Other than taking it easy
playing, the only things that seem to help are drinking lots of water,
vitamin C, diet and maybe ibuprofen. I have talked to other
players and have gotten unbelievable different response about this
thing. Some have no idea what I'm talking about. Some have
experienced the problem but have been freaked out by it and haven’t told
anyone.”
After a player's professional life is
upended by a painful, unforgiving chop problem, it is totally
understandable that every tiny twinge, irritation, bump, divot, scar
tissue, colored spot, or weakness he notices in his lips, mouth, or face
makes him wonder whether something else is causing
his dilemma—that if he could just fix it, his playing
would miraculously recover.
“I can’t focus my sound any more. My
lips feel like they are made of rubber and that I’m playing with both
cheeks puffed out, and I have no control over what I’m doing. My
lips are already tired after a five-minute warmup. I just don’t
know what could be wrong. I’ve added several hours of practice
each day, but it hasn’t helped.”
It is not that easy for a player to tell the
difference between normal fatigue and overuse. The effects of the
typical embouchure fatigue a player experiences following a heavy
performance generally dissipate within twelve to twenty-four hours.
Overuse, on the other hand, does not go away quickly, and the long-term
impact it has on playing is profound. After a day or two, a
player's lips feel thick and dead and his embouchure seems
completely out of shape.
He struggles to play in the high range and loses his pinpoint control
and endurance.
Unlike what a player experiences under normal
circumstances, in overuse, lip soreness, swelling, and facial fatigue
are much more significant and linger well after the fact. It
stands to reason that an embouchure would not be able operate normally
in playing when its function is being impaired by profound fatigue,
discomfort, and swelling. These symptoms not only complicate playing in
the short term, they gradually program a reactive behavior into one’s
playing. The instant a player’s lips detect discomfort, a reactive
pain instinct is triggered that minutely loosens the controlled
structure of his embouchure. To a player, this feels like one or
both sides of his face is “weak”. A looser structure also allows
the rim of a player’s mouthpiece to bite into his lips with more
ferocity which then exposes them to constant, painful irritation.
The
redundant irritation, combined with the growing struggle to play,
eventually produce disconcerting physical symptoms, such as strange
sensations, localized lip gouging, a numb area in the center of the
lips, discolored spots or suspected scar tissue on a lip, to mention
only a few. It is, therefore, understandable that a player would come
to interpret any sort of weird sensation and/or discomfort that appears
every time he plays as an indication of a medical or dental problem or
injury to a lip. Let's examine some these physical complaints and
anomalies.
Chapter 6 When NOT to Change an Embouchure
If there is a subject which is widely
misunderstood by brass players and prescribed all too often for the
wrong reasons, it is changing an embouchure. An embouchure change
refers to moving a mouthpiece on a player's lips up or down, left or
right from its normal location with the hope that it will improve
playing in some way or solve troublesome playing difficulties. An
embouchure change cannot train or restore comfort or mechanical
integrity; it only changes the position of a player's mouthpiece on his
lips. Most of the time, an embouchure change backfires and lands a
player in a lengthy chop dilemma.
If you're the owner of a previously
well-functioning embouchure that has recently been foundered by chronic
lip discomfort, swelling, diminished endurance, and/or playing
difficulties that haven't improved with normal practice, it would be a
huge mistake to change your setup. Even the tiniest
adjustment to an embouchure will inflict major consequences on one's
playing and can take months to undo. It is double trouble when a
player tries to solve a painful embouchure problem by relocating his
mouthpiece away from a chronically sore spot on his lip.
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