Buzz vs. Air

From: Chris P Erker <cpe@ksu.edu>
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 1996 14:03:46 -0600 (CST)
Subject: Buzz vs. Air

All this talk about buzzing has made me wonder. Which has a bigger impact on the quality of ones tone, the buzz/embouchure or the air support behind it. I have had students that have had fairly good embouchures and could create a decent buzz but their tone was thin, airy or weak for the lack of a better word. It has been my experience that getting a player to increase their support without altering their chops has done more good than manipulating their embouchure. I was just wondering what others thought along this vein. It may be a chicken and the egg discussion but I thought I would see what people thought.

A second problem I wanted to toss into the fire was one I am experiencing now. I have a lead player that sounds just fine, good sound, good accuracy and great style as long as he is playing above the staff. Whenever he has to play in the middle and lower registers his sounds is very pinched and thin, when I talked with him about it and advised him to try and put the same kind of support to these notes as he does his high notes it just comes out louder. Could this be the mouthpiece or am I missing some other flaw. Thanks for any input anyone can provide.

Musically
Chris
From: TigerLewis@aol.com
Date: Tue, 5 Nov 1996 15:54:22 -0500
Subject: Re: Buzz vs. Air

I vote for the air. Without air, there can be no buzz.

Air is the number one topic in my lessons, not because I want it to be, but because it always seems to surface. I almost look at playing the trumpet as sort of an obstacle course for the air stream.

So you may be saying to yourself, "I thought Eddie said MUSIC was the number
one topic in his lessons?". I did. Music and air go hand in hand. They are almost the same thing. We make music with our air, not with our embouchures, not with our range, not with our rhythm. Air is what makes a phrase sound like a phrase. Air has so much impact on how we sound that if the air is weak, we sound weak; if the air is forced, then we sound forced. If the air is uncontrolled then we sound uncontrolled. We can not create emotional drama on the trumpet without doing so with our air.

Eddie Lewis
From: Tim Phillips <iplatrpt@twave.net>
Date: Tue, 05 Nov 1996 16:53:30 -0500
Subject: Re: Buzz vs. Air (and tickets)

Chris P Erker wrote:
> All this talk about buzzing has made me wonder. Which has a bigger
> impact on the quality of ones tone, the buzz/embouchure or the air
> support behind it.

The two are not mutually exclusive. To have a "good" buzz, air must flow. The better the flow, the better the buzz, the "fuller" the sound will be. A clear buzz is not necessarily a good buzz. Statics as practiced in the Steven's school can get you buzzing around triple C, but they aren't very useful as real notes... (Yea, I understand that the static is only the beginning, but this was to illustrate a point, not to bash a playing method). I have had a good buzz for years, but some real playing problems across time. It is not just the buzz - it is how it is created. Sound is the vibration of air - without an air column, there is no sound. The smaller, more compressed the column, the smaller and more compressed the sound. This does not mean that someone cannot play loudly with a tightly compressed focused air stream, it is
that it will probably be small/thin/shrill sounding.

> I have had students that have had fairly good
> embouchures and could create a decent buzz but their tone was thin, airy
> or weak for the lack of a better word. It has been my experience that
> getting a player to increase their support without altering their chops
> has done more good than manipulating their embouchure. I was just
> wondering what others thought along this vein. It may be a chicken and
> the egg discussion but I thought I would see what people thought.

I, too, talk about and work with chops as a last resort... when everything else I know (or better put) when my ability to explain conceptual playing and use of wind has failed to enlighten the student.

> A second problem I wanted to toss into the fire was one I am experiencing
> now. I have a lead player that sounds just fine, good sound, good
> accuracy and great style as long as he is playing above the staff.
> Whenever he has to play in the middle and lower registers his sounds is
> very pinched and thin, when I talked with him about it and advised him to
> try and put the same kind of support to these notes as he does his high
> notes it just comes out louder. Could this be the mouthpiece or am I
> missing some other flaw. Thanks for any input anyone can provide.
>
> Musically
> Chris

I had that very problem. Ray Mase was stunned. I could blow loud high lead, play beautiful delicate pic, but when it came to the Bflat, Charlier #2 was not a viable possibility. I narrowed it down through time to a conceptual problem. I had listened to MF, Doc Severinson and Maurice Andre ceaselessly for years. That is what I could do. I had no example of what a great legit Bflat player sounded like in my listening
and my mental recordings (for some reason, I couldn't imagine Doc playing Charlier). Some of the players I had, I didn't like... When I started recording myself and analyzing the flaws in the playing (as I had been tearing other players apart...) I was able to start working towards making my own Bflat playing sound like what I want. I am not there yet, but who ever arrives???

Tim Phillips