I recently took some lessons with Jim Manley and after 40 years of over blowing (I now realise) I now have a much improved high register, ease throughout the whole horn, overtones and harmonics in my sound. A total revelation!
I’ve been meaning to write to Jim Manley for well over a decade. I saw his video with the Airmen of Note trumpet players, and I kinda sorta got the concept of what he was saying, but I wanted him to expound and really go into it. Then, I recently saw the video he did with K.O., last year, and he did get a little deeper, but I wish he’d write a book on it. I had just stumbled upon the Stomvi TH-cam channel. I wish this video had been available forty years ago. So, thank you, K.O. It’s only recently that I’ve discovered several players who are essentially saying the same thing. I had spent a lot of time getting my chops incredibly strong, yet that first note of my entrance scares me. Will I get it, or fluff it? It seems like I’m fighting the horn the get it to speak, and it’s always felt as though I had to work way too hard to produce a sound. Getting tired never bothered me, because endurance wasn’t an issue. Now, I’m seeing what K.O. said about playing when he had the flu. My playing as I would get tired would get better, because I wasn’t blowing so hard. Here, I’ve spent my life trying to “muscle” the trumpet (and if you’ve ever tried to get a Bach to center on a High A, you know what I mean). I only found out about the Stomvi UpSound a few days ago, while watching the Jim Manley interview, and now I’m going to get one as soon as I can. From what I’ve recently learned, I think the whole approach to teaching students the trumpet has been (for many teachers, not all) somewhat misguided. We’ve been taught how to buzz into the mouthpiece, and from there, we’re assigned exercises from all the standard books, to practice a zillion times until we can play them. But what if we never first learn how to produce a sound as easily as possible? When I played in college, I used an incredible amount of pressure. There were a lot of swollen “next days.” Once the Internet became available, I (again) “stumbled” upon Clint McLaughlin, and learned that I was playing with an open embouchure when I should have been playing with one with the lips just touching. He even teaches about the different methods to add resistance for increasing range (but, he cautions, NOT all at once!). Even with HIS advice, I still didn’t “get it.” What I DID get from Clint, though, allowed me to learn to play with almost no mouthpiece pressure, no longer pushing the horn into my face. My embouchure forms a “cushion” between the mouthpiece and my teeth, and my lips no longer get tired (or mashed). When I do get tired, it’s the just the surrounding muscles (Orbicularis Oris, if you want to get technical). It’s only now, that I realize, I need to back off on the effort of compressing my chops and the amount of air I try to force (because that’s what it is) through the horn. We’ve always been told to practice as quietly as possible (think Clarke), but nobody ever told me WHY. It’s not so you don’t bother the neighbors (though, I’m sure they’ll be thankful), but so you learn the coordination it takes to play the full range of the horn with a beautiful sound, one embouchure set that makes the notes play at the horn’s resonant frequency with the least amount of effort (as relaxed as possible, using no more air than necessary), and you learn how to control your sound. A lot of you reading this are slapping your head and going, “well, DUH!” or maybe even “No 💩 Sherlock,” but do you have any idea how many students of the trumpet do NOT know these things? One good idea I read a few years ago was that you don’t get a trumpet “teacher.” You get a trumpet “coach.” It’s YOU who teaches yourself the trumpet, through trial and error experimentation to discover what works for YOU, as K.O. explained in this video. The coach is there to correct mistakes and keep you on track. That means finding the right coach, though. When I studied with Joe Morrissey, he never explained these things, even though as a former member of Chase, he could certainly do them. He did the traditional assigning of exercises, and I was a poor student because they seemed boring and they never seemed to get easier with repetition. Imagine if we had a revolution in teaching, and the first thing you learned was HOW to properly get the trumpet to produce a sound, with the least amount of effort? I love the video of Adam Rapa teaching his young nephew to play his first few notes on the trumpet, and they’re surprisingly good. Kids would be RUNNING home to practice as soon as school got out. If the notes came out of the horn easier, the effort needed in playing technical studies would become much less, you would improve quicker, hence the exercises wouldn’t be boring, but fun, as you saw noticeable improvement. You could concentrate more on the IMPORTANT thing, making MUSIC. Consider being in high school and having a big, fat, beautiful sound, with a range that exceeded Double High C! Man, the jocks could keep their sports. It couldn’t come close to comparing with being able to play the trumpet (and, as we all know, “chicks dig high notes”). Sorry for getting on the soapbox, but I’m pumped to get to the experimenting I have to do.
Thanks for this, great stuff. Re your comment about playing well after having a week off sick, I think another factor is your chops have been resting and are completely fresh. I think in our desire to get stronger and maintain strength many players do not allow time for their embouchure to recover.
As soprano cornet player and engineer, I completely agree on your explanation. I'm glad to ear you about how to learn to play very loud in the upper register for more that an hour. For the next step, when you can reach higher with a very relax attitude, I personally thing it's a good idea to play the same notes as a crescendo/decrescendo (pppp), to learn to the body to produce/endorse more air pressure. BTW, I'm still looking for your part 1...
I've got a similar story: One Christmas Eve, I had 5 services booked. That's right, FIVE (4:00, 5:30, 7:00, 10:00, and Midnight) By the time I started the Midnight service, I was literally nodding off. I had reached the point where I "didn't give a shit" either, not because I didn't care, but because I was so exhausted to even realize what the hell was going on. The organist told me that midnight service was the best he's ever heard me play. :P
Hi, about that System in Mouthpiece, I was thinking about what you said and regarding My air, flow, pressure, airspeed, embouchure.... all that stuff !!! That’s why the “ whisper Sound “ is good to work all around ??? Is the Sound Wave the same that Airspeed ??? Thanks.
IMHO, it's good to learn to play with less air and less tension. In my case this unlocked the upper register that I had struggled with for many years. The sound wave and the air stream are not the same. Watch this video again and understand the part where I show the mouthpiece that let's no air from your mouth go into the trumpet. This will help your understanding about these things. The bottom line is you must experiment and find what works best for you!
stomviusavideo thanks for answering !!! My easygoing and persistent work on High range were making me think about all this things (I already have a Double High C) but it’s never enuf the acknowledgement. Thanks again.
Speed of sound traveling through air is roughly 340 meters per second, or 760 miles per hour. Speed of sound traveling through solid brass is roughly 4700 meters per second or 10,500 miles per hour. (Speed of sound isn't constant like light and is different depending on density and temperature of the media it's passing through.) Great vid. This really made me rethink stuff. I know all the pieces independently, but never really thought of it as a whole like this.
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I recently took some lessons with Jim Manley and after 40 years of over blowing (I now realise) I now have a much improved high register, ease throughout the whole horn, overtones and harmonics in my sound. A total revelation!
th-cam.com/video/7_02UlTQLQs/w-d-xo.html
Great explanation!!! Really makes you think..
Hope you’re doing well!!
Joe Triscari
I’ve been meaning to write to Jim Manley for well over a decade. I saw his video with the Airmen of Note trumpet players, and I kinda sorta got the concept of what he was saying, but I wanted him to expound and really go into it. Then, I recently saw the video he did with K.O., last year, and he did get a little deeper, but I wish he’d write a book on it. I had just stumbled upon the Stomvi TH-cam channel. I wish this video had been available forty years ago. So, thank you, K.O.
It’s only recently that I’ve discovered several players who are essentially saying the same thing. I had spent a lot of time getting my chops incredibly strong, yet that first note of my entrance scares me. Will I get it, or fluff it? It seems like I’m fighting the horn the get it to speak, and it’s always felt as though I had to work way too hard to produce a sound. Getting tired never bothered me, because endurance wasn’t an issue. Now, I’m seeing what K.O. said about playing when he had the flu. My playing as I would get tired would get better, because I wasn’t blowing so hard. Here, I’ve spent my life trying to “muscle” the trumpet (and if you’ve ever tried to get a Bach to center on a High A, you know what I mean). I only found out about the Stomvi UpSound a few days ago, while watching the Jim Manley interview, and now I’m going to get one as soon as I can.
From what I’ve recently learned, I think the whole approach to teaching students the trumpet has been (for many teachers, not all) somewhat misguided. We’ve been taught how to buzz into the mouthpiece, and from there, we’re assigned exercises from all the standard books, to practice a zillion times until we can play them.
But what if we never first learn how to produce a sound as easily as possible?
When I played in college, I used an incredible amount of pressure. There were a lot of swollen “next days.” Once the Internet became available, I (again) “stumbled” upon Clint McLaughlin, and learned that I was playing with an open embouchure when I should have been playing with one with the lips just touching. He even teaches about the different methods to add resistance for increasing range (but, he cautions, NOT all at once!). Even with HIS advice, I still didn’t “get it.” What I DID get from Clint, though, allowed me to learn to play with almost no mouthpiece pressure, no longer pushing the horn into my face. My embouchure forms a “cushion” between the mouthpiece and my teeth, and my lips no longer get tired (or mashed). When I do get tired, it’s the just the surrounding muscles (Orbicularis Oris, if you want to get technical). It’s only now, that I realize, I need to back off on the effort of compressing my chops and the amount of air I try to force (because that’s what it is) through the horn.
We’ve always been told to practice as quietly as possible (think Clarke), but nobody ever told me WHY. It’s not so you don’t bother the neighbors (though, I’m sure they’ll be thankful), but so you learn the coordination it takes to play the full range of the horn with a beautiful sound, one embouchure set that makes the notes play at the horn’s resonant frequency with the least amount of effort (as relaxed as possible, using no more air than necessary), and you learn how to control your sound.
A lot of you reading this are slapping your head and going, “well, DUH!” or maybe even “No 💩 Sherlock,” but do you have any idea how many students of the trumpet do NOT know these things? One good idea I read a few years ago was that you don’t get a trumpet “teacher.” You get a trumpet “coach.” It’s YOU who teaches yourself the trumpet, through trial and error experimentation to discover what works for YOU, as K.O. explained in this video. The coach is there to correct mistakes and keep you on track. That means finding the right coach, though. When I studied with Joe Morrissey, he never explained these things, even though as a former member of Chase, he could certainly do them. He did the traditional assigning of exercises, and I was a poor student because they seemed boring and they never seemed to get easier with repetition.
Imagine if we had a revolution in teaching, and the first thing you learned was HOW to properly get the trumpet to produce a sound, with the least amount of effort? I love the video of Adam Rapa teaching his young nephew to play his first few notes on the trumpet, and they’re surprisingly good. Kids would be RUNNING home to practice as soon as school got out. If the notes came out of the horn easier, the effort needed in playing technical studies would become much less, you would improve quicker, hence the exercises wouldn’t be boring, but fun, as you saw noticeable improvement. You could concentrate more on the IMPORTANT thing, making MUSIC. Consider being in high school and having a big, fat, beautiful sound, with a range that exceeded Double High C! Man, the jocks could keep their sports. It couldn’t come close to comparing with being able to play the trumpet (and, as we all know, “chicks dig high notes”).
Sorry for getting on the soapbox, but I’m pumped to get to the experimenting I have to do.
These videos are pure gold!
I'm learning using the Mitchell Method and so far, so good.
Lot's of great stuff here, K.O.
Thanks for this, great stuff. Re your comment about playing well after having a week off sick, I think another factor is your chops have been resting and are completely fresh. I think in our desire to get stronger and maintain strength many players do not allow time for their embouchure to recover.
Great point and thanks for jumping in. I have a lot of fun doing these videos so I really appreciate you taking the time to comment!
The yawn breathe Jim Manley 😊🎺
As soprano cornet player and engineer, I completely agree on your explanation. I'm glad to ear you about how to learn to play very loud in the upper register for more that an hour. For the next step, when you can reach higher with a very relax attitude, I personally thing it's a good idea to play the same notes as a crescendo/decrescendo (pppp), to learn to the body to produce/endorse more air pressure. BTW, I'm still looking for your part 1...
Thanks for commenting! All four parts (more to come) are in this playlist: th-cam.com/play/PLfAUQHpm4_foWYReSsA4afSrb_G55ffT6.html
I've got a similar story: One Christmas Eve, I had 5 services booked. That's right, FIVE (4:00, 5:30, 7:00, 10:00, and Midnight)
By the time I started the Midnight service, I was literally nodding off. I had reached the point where I "didn't give a shit" either, not because I didn't care, but because I was so exhausted to even realize what the hell was going on.
The organist told me that midnight service was the best he's ever heard me play. :P
Hi Andy,
Exactly. Great story and thanks for sharing!
THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!
The holy grail...
Yes yes yes!
Hi, about that System in Mouthpiece, I was thinking about what you said and regarding My air, flow, pressure, airspeed, embouchure.... all that stuff !!! That’s why the “ whisper Sound “ is good to work all around ??? Is the Sound Wave the same that Airspeed ??? Thanks.
IMHO, it's good to learn to play with less air and less tension. In my case this unlocked the upper register that I had struggled with for many years. The sound wave and the air stream are not the same. Watch this video again and understand the part where I show the mouthpiece that let's no air from your mouth go into the trumpet. This will help your understanding about these things. The bottom line is you must experiment and find what works best for you!
stomviusavideo thanks for answering !!! My easygoing and persistent work on High range were making me think about all this things (I already have a Double High C) but it’s never enuf the acknowledgement. Thanks again.
Speed of sound traveling through air is roughly 340 meters per second, or 760 miles per hour. Speed of sound traveling through solid brass is roughly 4700 meters per second or 10,500 miles per hour. (Speed of sound isn't constant like light and is different depending on density and temperature of the media it's passing through.) Great vid. This really made me rethink stuff. I know all the pieces independently, but never really thought of it as a whole like this.