Question for Brass Players: How Has Your Embouchure Changed Over Time?

[u/No_Cod6589]

I’m a Japanese euphonium player currently writing my master’s thesis on embouchure and embouchure-related problems in brass playing.
In Japan, the term “mucosal playing” (粘膜奏法) is used to describe a particular type of embouchure. However, I’ve found that this terminology may not be widely recognized outside Japan, so I’m interested in learning more about brass players’ real-life experiences with embouchure development.
I’d love to hear about your experiences:
1. When you first started playing your instrument, how did you develop your embouchure? Did a teacher guide you, did you imitate another player, or did you develop it naturally through trial and error?
2. Has your embouchure remained essentially the same since you started playing, or has it changed over time? If it has changed, what prompted the change?
3. Have you ever experienced a situation where your embouchure limited your playing range or made certain notes difficult or impossible to play? If so, did you have to change your embouchure to overcome the problem?
4. Have you ever experienced embouchure-related problems, such as difficulty with the high register, inconsistent tone, reduced endurance, or difficulty producing certain notes? If so, how did you address them?
I’m particularly interested in the experiences of trumpet, trombone, euphonium, French horn, and tuba players, regardless of their level of experience.
Your personal experiences and insights would be greatly appreciated and may help me better understand how embouchures develop and change throughout a brass player’s career.
Thank you!

[u/royjohn62847]

I am absolutely delighted that you are doing embouchure research. There is very little practical research on embouchure and facilitating learning. I hope you are familiar with the work of Donald Reinhardt and his followers. You can find a lot of info on embouchure and embouchure research from Dave Wilkens at wilktone.com. Does mucosal playing mean placing the mpc on the red of the lips? If so, Dave will be able to tell you a lot about that.

[u/slaymaker1907]

One big one from my teacher was the insight that to change “register”, you need to change your air angle, the direction and amount varying from player to player. It’s largely the reason why it is often more difficult to play a bunch of notes ascending to a new one or vice versa compared to just playing said note from the beginning.

My embouchure has mostly stayed the same and has just gotten more and more refined like with the above trick.

Not for euphonium/trombone, but when I was learning trumpet, I noticed that while the notes within the trombone range (up to very high F on the trombone) were very easy to play, beyond that was pretty much impossible. I suspect this has something to do with that being in my typical instrument’s register.

I’m not sure how useful it is for your research, but my teacher also claimed that marching band was bad for your embouchure. The reason for this being that even the small movements of the mouthpiece on your face while marching can hinder development of a consistent embouchure.

[u/TheRealLinkwitzRiley → u/slaymaker1907]

For me that is not true; I can play an ascending scale to high f (above high c) on euph but i would never hit it isolated.

[u/Zestyclose_League413]

1. Teacher didn't really guide me as far as embouchure goes, mostly just modeled and talked about what the sound should be. So relatively naturally, I definitely tried to imitate my teacher and some players I found on the internet (joe alessi, christian Lindberg,.JJ Johnson)

2. It's evolved somewhat, but I'd say after solidifying in late high school it's remained the same since with some minor adjustments. Mostly it's become closer to my natural "resting" face.

3. I've never been able to play in the extreme pedal register, like past F. I'm told by bass trombone friends you need a shift there, but I've never been able to make anything work beyond my typical setup.l

4. Not really honestly. I've experienced difficulties, but I think the solution was usually air/ear related

[u/sgtslyde]

When I first started playing, my school had just started a band program, and the director herself was an oboist, so there were no experienced players around to show us how to play. Most of us developed a smile-and-press type of embouchure, which limited my upper range to about the seventh partial, limited my flexibility, and also made pedal tones unstable for me. When I started college, I tried my whole freshman year but was unable to change it.

That summer, between freshman and sophomore years of college, I had sinus surgery to correct a deviated nasal septum, and the surgeon forbid my playing trombone for eight or ten weeks (this was more than forty years ago so I'm not certain). When I started back on the trombone, I kept the instructions from my trombone teacher in mind, and developed a more standard embouchure.

It's stayed pretty stable since then, even across times I went years without playing regularly. Most changes I've noticed since then have been behind the lips, as I learned to use my tongue to shape and control the airflow for notes above the sixth partial and below the second, not so much changing the lips.

My trombone teacher back then said I was the only student he'd ever had with such a solid excuse for not practicing over the summer, especially to come back with such a positive result!

[u/ChadGippidy → u/sgtslyde]

How do you use your tongue to shape notes? I feel like I'm depending entirely on my lips to get to the higher register, but of course that just sounds thin, weedy, and caps out at a certain point. But when I try to focus on Ahhh to Eeee tongue positions to go up a partial, all it seems to do is make the note sharper and not even come close to changing the partial

[u/No_Cod6589 → u/sgtslyde]

Thank you for your reply. Your story about the surgery break was fascinating.

May I ask a follow-up? Do you think the forced break was the key to rebuilding your embouchure, since you couldn't change it during your whole freshman year? When you started playing again, what exactly did you focus on in the first few weeks, and how long did it take before the new embouchure felt stable?

I'm researching whether a habituated embouchure can be rebuilt from the beginning, so any details about your process would be very valuable. Would it be okay if I quote your answer anonymously in my master's thesis?

[u/ItsYaBoyFaxx]

1. My band teacher taught me to push out air while making the mmm sound. And refine it based off the different notes from there.

2. Refined, comes with time and different music.

3. Not for Euphonium or Baritone, when I play Trombone you have to make minor adjustments to adjust to that horn, and back and forth between the two.

4. Experienced all of these, most of it is always just the amount of air you use, faster, more, less, slower or anything like that.

[u/lowbrassdoublerman]

I was just playing at first with no thought or instruction until part way through college. I wound up in a military band with a semi functional embouchure.

While going for the premier band auditions, I had 2 lessons with top players who WENT IN on my puffy, floaty embouchure. The problem wasn’t with my range, but the inconsistent way that my notes started and stopped. I could player higher and lowers than I ever needed to, but no matter how slowly and patient I worked on articulated passages I would never sound as clean as a player like Brian Bowman.

Fixing it was/is a pain. I used a mirror every day for months and still warm up with one often. The two most important things that I did was find the sound that coincided with my little embouchure breaks and made sure that my airflow was steady with no pulsing or rapid changes. Sometimes I’ll do attacks and releases in front of a mirror with the goal of setting up so that I look the same before, during, and after playing the note. Here’s a video of some of the most consistent players you can find: https://youtu.be/j8fgse3Pamg

[u/compressedstars]

My embouchure had a massive change in my sophomore year of college. I started as a flute player, and when I switched to euphonium in high school I kind of just flattened my flute embouchure to buzz, if that makes sense. It stopped me from being able to play anything higher than the F over middle C, presumably because my air was being forced towards the bottom of the mouthpiece. Fixing it meant learning to bring my jaw forward and “flatten” my face.

[u/Positive-Inside-8981]

Well, I’m going to give you my experience, first, I’m 22 years old, I’m studying French horn in college, because I want it to be my main professional instrument, and to build a professional career on top of it, on the other side, I got started on Baritone(one year later Euphonium) when I was 6, and I have kept up with my euphonium all these years, and, I play gigs on bars and different groups across my city playing trumpet, and trombone.

1-2. When I started playing, in my school’s band, there were no other baritone players, and our teacher only knew how to play and teach trumpet, so I had to learn my embouchure all by myself, I feel that with time, the body realizes what your trying to do, and finds the most comfortable way to do it, but, as you grow up, and as you keep playing an instrument your body changes, and with those changes you also have to find the new “best” way to do your job. (Now, I mention this with how much my embouchure changed throughout the years, and how it conflicted and complimented my French horn embouchure when I started college.

1. Yes, i did get to a point in which I felt my embouchure was keeping me from playing or getting comfortable in some registers, after playing so many years euphonium (on a school level instrument, a Yamaha yep 211) I got comfortable playing high, but never playing low, and, after I started learning and focusing on the French horn, I noticed my embouchure on the euphonium just didn’t work for all of its register, as in, it was only good for playing hig, and not very flexible, I fought with that embouchure for a year, up until this year, earlier this year 2 very important things happened in my life, 1st I saved up and finally got myself my very own euphonium (A Yamaha YEP 321, non compensating, but at least it works and is mine), with a 4 valve euphonium I was finally able to explore the low register (even if with alternative fingerings) and 2nd, I got to study and play Herman Neulling’s Bagatelle for the French horn, lovely piece, so far the one I love playing the most, next to Webber’s concertino, but, if you ever get the change to hear and see the piece, you would find out it moves you a lot through registers, both low and high, and, getting to study and comprehend what I needed to play this piece helped me understand what I needed to change in my embouchure on the Euphonium, it’s not that they work the same (because they don’t) but sometimes working on one can help you discover stuff you needed for the other one, in my case, I the euphonium I was playing too high in the mouthpiece, and pressed to hard against it, what I did was move my lips a bit further down on my mouthpiece and tried to find a spot that allowed me to use all my air and to stay free in my movements, so I could switch from low to high on the fly (like on the French horn).

2. Well, in my experience, once I found my “new spot” on my mouthpiece I found that I couldn’t force my high notes on the instrument anymore, and what I did to fix that was to use a lot of, uhm, I don’t know how do people call in in English, but, air support, like singers do, I use a lot of air support (and also train air support), and, to compliment it, since the higher register tends to be unstable and sharp, I study it a lot with drones, and try different fingerings, since the euphonium is not like the French horn, and I can’t adjust the tuning with the hand, I train my ear to make sure I keep the high register as stable as possible.

I hope I could help you out a bit.

[u/htitans]

I would love to answer these questions for your thesis. This is very interesting!
1. When I first started playing trombone, I was mostly guided by a teacher because I started in the beginners band at school, so we all were just learning. I started playing euphonium the year after. As I got older and better at playing I believe my embouchure developed naturally.
2. I think that since I’ve started playing my embouchure has changed over time. I believe that as you mature as a player and learn more about your instrument and different techniques, it will change.
3. I’m sure I have experienced a situation like that. I had braces as a high schooler and that was a big change to get used to. I had to work around that to be able to play my instrument. And then I got them off and had to readjust again.
4. I think my biggest problem has always been difficultly with the higher register. However I’m not sure if my embouchure was the problem. I had a lesson teacher and she was always telling me to use more air and slam my valves down to help get the notes out. I always was shy playing around her for some reason.
I’ve played euphonium for about 11 years, but I was young when I started and it was mostly in lower level bands so I’m not sure if my information is of any use, but I hope I can help!

[u/Forever_Clear_Eyes]

I changed my technique from "static lips, air based" as taught by my trombone teacher as a kid to "flexible embouchure and oral cavity based".

Growing up I was taught to use more air to fix everything, and to tongue in an isolated spot. I understand, as a teacher, why teaching one specific and successful method is good for kids. It avoid information overload, it makes things simple, and it works well enough.

However, my approach now is more refined and it's the same details I teach to students. I teach that brass playing is a relationship between volume, pressure, and velocity of air, to achieve range and dynamic. My more recent teachers have been tuba and horn players.

I also focus more on efficiency. I used to play on a toilet bowl of a mouthpiece, and I never thought twice about my equipment. I thought if something was wrong, I needed to go bigger. I've now learned to play on the smallest gear that still allows me to achieve my goals. Everything about my playing is better except for overall volume, which let's be honest is just a dick measuring contest. I'm plenty loud and I've got more in the tank. My sound projects better than someone playing louder, and I'll be understood better in the hall.

I'm extremely grateful for my teachers, I learned what I needed to learn later, but I think I learned it too late.