Advancing Your Trumpet Playing –Mastering Lip Flexibilities Part 1.4

Using The Right Tools For The Job

If you play a lot of gigs that need you to play in the upper register then you’ll no doubt use a mouth piece that is more suited to the job. If you do other work that requires you to stay within the stave but create a nicer tone you’ll most likely have a more appropriate mouthpiece for this job as well.

Taking from what Eddie Severn taught me; you should always warm up on your regular mouthpiece (rather than lead). I’ll take this one step further and say if you practice lip flex’s constantly on your regular mouthpiece and expand your range to that of when you use your lead mouthpiece you will have advanced your abilities. Therefore when you use your lead mouthpiece you will see a dramatic difference. As always these are my thoughts – take it or leave it.

It’s important to keep everything constant when you practice. It’s a very analytical technique but by changing a single variable and keeping everything else constant you can observe that one variables true effect on your playing. In other words; ditch technology that enhances your playing in order to improve your core abilities.

I think I’ve posted enough on this for now. I’m gigging all weekend so won’t get as much chance to persist in my flex’s as I had hoped but I’d like to post on this again when I’ve had some more time to reflect and also recommend some good exercises and books that I find useful.