[TPIN] Air is Bad!! - EFFICIENCY! Part 5

[Jon]

Ok, the unabridged edition...

1. Air is the enemy.
2. The enemy must be defeated and made a slave to our desires.

So, for those of you who haven't deleted this, lemme explain...

Air, as we all know, can be a good thing. A gentle breeze on a lovely spring
day: good. A fresh breath on a mountain peak: good. A tornado which takes
out your double-wide: not so great.

We're all taught from day one that air is the answer to efficient playing.
Just use more of it and you'll be fine. Breathe deeper, lower, higher,
wider, narrower, fill the bottom, fill the top, never run out, yada yada
yada. There's a well-known major-manufacturer artist and forum moderator
whose answer to every problem is use more air, relax, and buy a Brand X. Ok,
then. Take two aspirin, lay off the high notes for a day, and call me in the
morning.

The fact is, we can't play without air (duh), but air without proper
embouchure control and efficiency can be more destructive than constructive.
Here's why:

In the low register we use lots of air under relatively low pressure. For 
the middle, not so much air with moderate pressure. The high register 
requires less air volume than the other two, but under much greater 
pressure, which increases as we ascend.

High air pressure fights to defeat the seal created by the lips, which, if 
the pressure becomes great enough, tend to act like the double-wide in a 
hurricane: they get blown away.

Here's an easy way to test this: roll in your lips a bit, clamp down, and 
blow hard. You'll notice it's pretty easy to keep the air in. Now, form a 
normal "buzz" setting and blow. You'll find that air escapes all over - from 
the corners, the middle, and all points between.

The pressurized air seeks the path(s) of least resistance to escape. Now, 
under real playing conditions, we're doing two things: 1. Trying to keep air 
from escaping randomly, and 2. Trying to direct it into the aperture to 
create the vibrations necessary to play.

Of course, we have the mpc as a "seal facilitator," but it's also the 
source, or the recipient of, arm pressure so the mpc is a kind of "double 
agent" when it comes to fighting air, the real enemy.

In the high register, the strongly pressurized air will try to blow apart 
the aperture which is the point of least resistance. The extent to which the 
aperture can withstand this assault and turn it to advantage (e.g. a nice 
high note) is dependent on the embouchure's efficiency quotient.

We get tired when the embouchure muscles can't easily maintain the lip seal 
and must struggle to do so. The higher and/or longer we play, the worse it 
gets.

Here's another test: pick up the horn and play a high note that's slightly 
out of your comfort range. Just attack it FF, nice and loud. No preparation. 
Did you hit it, or miss it? Is it easier to play if you slur up to it, or 
reach it at the top of a scale? Most of us dread high notes that come out of 
the blue - after a long rest or with little lead up. This tests how well our 
chops can resist the sudden air blast which, unfortunately, we need to hit 
the note. If the lips are sealing well, no problem (read: Herseth playing 
the Zarathustra lick 50X in a row - or was it Vacchiano?) If not, big 
problem (read: me playing the Zarathustra lick 50X in a row)

So how do we deal with this enemy? Yeah, that's Part 6.... :)

Jon 


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