Trumpet advice

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Hey - just got myself a trumpet. As a complete beginner, any brass players got any advice? I will probably invest in a few lessons to get off to a good start but if anyone has any hints or tips, I'd love to hear them.

I also need a recommendation for a practice mute!

;-)
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Comments

  • dogloaddogload Frets: 1495
    wave100 said:

    I also need a recommendation for a practice mute!

    ;-)
    How about this? ;)

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  • sev112sev112 Frets: 2739
    Don’t blow hard 
    try and make a clean note with as low pressure in your lips as you can 
    a good tip is to listen to your tone.  Set up your phone to record and the hold a note for as long as you can.  Then listen back, it’s quite ear opening :)

    tone gets substatially better when when you can actually get the brass (unless you’ve bought a plastic) vibrating , as opposed to squeezing a note down the tubes and out of the horn.  The exercise above will really help that, as you start to build strength in your stomach muscles and your lips.  

    And if if you have never been taught, learn how to breathe properly.  Lay on your back. Put a thick book on your upper part of your stomach . Breathe in, and your stomach should LIFT; breathe out and your stomach should DROP.  Make long breaths in and long breaths out.

    re embrouchure, there is a little bit of tip of the tongue in there - it isn’t all just your lips . The tip is just behind the back of the inside of your lips.  Keep your lips closed and prepare to make a “t” sound.  Then, while keeping your tongue there, slightly open your lips .  It will come out as a “p”, but your lips will be much more stable than just blowing with a “wh” sound.

    finally, when your lips are knackered, give up for the evening and read some theory.
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  • wave100wave100 Frets: 150
    Thanks for the responses folks, you will no doubt be relieved to hear that I got a practice mute ( which cost about 2/3 of the price of the trumpet) and can now more or less consistently  play four different pitches (natural tones perhaps?) without using the valves so one of these days I'll get on to using the valves. It makes your lips feel funny!
    :)
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  • My entire five minute experience with a trumpet gave me an horrendous throat infection so you’re doing better than me. Top tip: don’t use someone else’s trumpet without disinfecting the mouthpiece first. 
    Tipton is a small fishing village in the borough of Sandwell. 
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  • Lots of long notes. Helps breathing, intonation and providing you are listening to the tone, will help with making a good sound.

    Do get some lessons, it will save you developing some really bad habits.
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  • I played trumpet / cornet for over 25 years, and my wife's a brass tutor...... I would say practice the no pressure technique (google it) as you want to be not pushing the instrument against your lips at all. I've seen kids get blood blisters on their lips from pressing too hard. Plus the more you pull the instrument into your face the harder it is to get high notes, in fact, it works almost the opposite way. You get higher notes from regular practice and building the muscles up in your face.

    Also on that, google too tar and tee. these are the shapes your toung should make when playing low, medium and high notes.

    hope that helps
    Andy



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  • octatonicoctatonic Frets: 33725
    Blow in the small end.

    You can apply this to other areas of life.
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  • wave100wave100 Frets: 150
    Thanks guys! Almost got a scale out of it today...
    ;-)
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  • TheMarlinTheMarlin Frets: 7744
    Blow into the smaller end!
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