Embouchure - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The embouchure is the use of facial muscles and the shaping of the lips to the mouthpiece

Mouthpiece (woodwind)

The mouthpiece of a woodwind instrument is that part of the instrument which is placed partly in the player's mouth. Single-reed instruments, capped double-reed instruments, and fipple flutes have mouthpieces while exposed double-reed instruments and open flutes do not.-Single-reed instruments:On...

of woodwind instruments or the mouthpiece

Mouthpiece (brass)

On brass instruments the mouthpiece is the part of the instrument which is placed upon the player's lips. The purpose of the mouthpiece is a resonator, which passes vibration from the lips to the column of air contained within the instrument, giving rise to the standing wave pattern of vibration in...

of the brass instruments.

The word is of French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

origin and is related to the root bouche (fr.), 'mouth'.

The proper embouchure allows the instrumentalist to play the instrument at its full range with a full, clear tone and without strain or damage to one's muscles.

Brass embouchure

While performing on a brass instrument, the sound is produced by the player buzzing his or her lips into a mouthpiece. Pitches are changed in part through altering the amount of muscular contraction in the lip formation. The performer's use of the air, tightening of cheek and jaw muscles, as well as tongue manipulation can affect how the embouchure works.

Even today, many brass pedagogues take a rigid approach to teaching how a brass player's embouchure should function. Many of these authors also disagree with each other regarding which technique is correct. Research suggests efficient brass embouchures depend on the player using the method that suits that player's particular anatomy (see below). Individual differences in dental structure, lip shape and size, jaw shape and the degree of jaw malocclusion, and other anatomical factors will affect whether a particular embouchure technique will be effective or not .

In 1962, Philip Farkas

Philip Farkas

Philip Farkas was principal hornist in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for many years; he left in 1960 to join the music faculty at Indiana University Bloomington. He wrote The Art of French Horn Playing which is considered by many to be the seminal work for horn players...

hypothesized that the air stream traveling through the lip aperture should be directed straight down the shank of the mouthpiece. He believed that it would be illogical to "violently deflect" the air stream downward at the point of where the air moves past the lips. In this text, Farkas also recommends that the lower jaw be protruded so that the upper and lower teeth are aligned.

In 1970, Farkas published a second text which contradicted his earlier writing. Out of 40 subjects, Farkas showed that 39 subjects directed the air downward to varying degrees and 1 subject directed the air in an upward direction at various degrees. The lower jaw position seen in these photographs show more variation from his earlier text as well.

This supports what was written by trombonist and brass pedagogue Donald S. Reinhardt in 1942. In 1972, Reinhardt described and labeled different embouchure patterns according to such characteristics as mouthpiece placement and the general direction of the air stream as it travels past the lips. According to this later text, players who place the mouthpiece higher on the lips, so that more upper lip is inside the mouthpiece, will direct the air downwards to varying degrees while playing. Performers who place the mouthpiece lower, so that more lower lip is inside the mouthpiece, will direct the air to varying degrees in an upward manner. In order for the performer to be successful, the air stream direction and mouthpiece placement need to be personalized based on individual anatomical differences. Lloyd Leno confirmed the existence of both upstream and downstream embouchures.

More controversial was Reinhardt's description and recommendations regarding a phenomenon he termed a "pivot". According to Reinhardt, a successful brass embouchure depends on a motion wherein the performer moves both the mouthpiece and lips as a single unit along the teeth in an upward and downward direction. As the performer ascends in pitch, he or she will either move the lips and mouthpiece together slightly up towards the nose or pull them down together slightly towards the chin, and use the opposite motion to descend in pitch. Whether the player uses one general pivot direction or the other, and the degree to which the motion is performed, depends on the performer's anatomical features and stage of development. The placement of the mouthpiece upon the lips doesn't change, but rather the relationship of the rim and lips to the teeth. While the angle of the instrument may change as this motion follows the shape of the teeth and placement of the jaw, contrary to what many brass performers and teachers believe, the angle of the instrument does not actually constitute the motion Reinhardt advised as a pivot.

Later research supports Reinhardt's claim that this motion exists and might be advisable for brass performers to adopt. John Froelich describes how mouthpiece pressure towards the lips (vertical forces) and shear pressure (horizontal forces) functioned in three test groups, student trombonists, professional trombonists, and professional symphonic trombonists. Froelich noted that the symphonic trombonists used the least amount of both direct and shear forces and recommends this model be followed. Other research notes that virtually all brass performers rely upon the upward and downward embouchure motion. Other authors and pedagogues remain skeptical about the necessity of this motion, but scientific evidence supporting this view has not been sufficiently developed at this time to support this view.

Some noted brass pedagogues prefer to instruct the use of the embouchure from a less analytical point of view. Arnold Jacobs

Arnold Jacobs

Arnold Jacobs was an American orchestral tuba player who was most known as the principal Tubist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra from 1944 until his retirement in 1988....

, a tubist and well-regarded brass teacher, believed that it was best for the student to focus on his or her use of the air and musical expression to allow the embouchure to develop naturally on its own. Other instructors, such as Carmine Caruso, believed that the brass player's embouchure could best be developed through strength building exercises that focus the student's attention on his or her time perception. Still other authors who have differing approaches to embouchure development include Louis Maggio, Jeff Smiley, and Jerome Callet

Jerome Callet

Jerome Callet is a musician, teacher and designer of brass instruments.He resides and works in Staten Island, New York. Callet, spends the bulk of his time teaching embouchure for all brass instruments having recently retired from his long-time practice of designing his own line of brass...

Farkas embouchure

Most professional performers, as well as instructors, use a combination called a puckered smile. Farkas told people to blow as if they were trying to cool soup. Raphael Mendez advised saying the letter "M". The skin under your lower lip will be taut with no air pocket. Your lips do not overlap nor do they roll in or out. The corners of the mouth are held firmly in place. To play with an extended range you should use a pivot, tongue arch and lip to lip compression.

According to Farkas the mouthpiece should have 2/3 upper lip and 1/3 lower lip (French horn), 2/3 lower lip and 1/3 upper lip (trumpet and cornet), and more latitude for lower brass (trombone, baritone, and tuba). For trumpet, some also advocate 1/2 upper lip and 1/2 lower lip . Farkas claimed placement was more important for the instruments with smaller mouthpieces. Your lips should not overlap each other, nor should they roll in or out. The mouth corners should be held firm. Farkas speculated that the horn should be held in a downward angle to allow the air stream to go straight into the mouthpiece, although his later text shows that air stream direction actually is either upstream or downstream and is dependent upon the ratio of upper or lower lip inside the mouthpiece, not the horn angle. Farkas advised to moisten the outside of your lips, then form your embouchure and gently place the mouthpiece on it. He also recommended there must be a gap of ⅓ inch or so between your teeth so that the air flows freely.

Arban vs. Saint-Jacome

Arban and Saint-Jacome were both cornet soloists and authors of well respected and still used method books. Arban stated undogmatically that he believed the mouthpiece should be placed 1/3 on the top lip. St. Jacome to the contrary said dogmatically that the mouthpiece should be placed "two-thirds for the upper and the rest for the under according to all professors and one-third for the upper and two-thirds for the under according to one sole individual, whom I shall not name." (Original Text: http://www.purtle.com/saint-jacome-method-original-text.html)

(Subset) Buzzing embouchure

The Farkas set is the basis of most lip buzzing embouchures. Mendez did teach lip buzzing and got great results. One can initiate this type of buzz by using the same sensation as spitting seeds, but maintaining a continued flow of air. This technique assists the development of the Farkas approach by preventing the player from using an aperture that is too open.

Stevens-Costello embouchure

Stevens-Costello embouchure has its origins in the William Costello embouchure and was further developed by Roy Stevens

Roy Stevens

Roy Stevens was an American trumpet player, Stevens-Costello System brass embouchure teacher, and author of the Embouchure Self-Analysis: Stevens-Costello Triple C Embouchure Technique with Bill Moriarity.-Biography:...

. It uses a slight rolling in of both lips and touching evenly all the way across. It also uses mouthpiece placement of about 40% to 50% top lip and 60% to 50% lower lip. The teeth will be about 1/4 to 1/2 inch apart and the teeth are parallel or the jaw slightly forward.

There is relative mouthpiece pressure to the given air column. One exercise to practice the proper weight to air relationship is the palm exercise where you hold your horn by laying it on its side in the palm of your hand. Do not grasp it. Place your lips on the mouthpiece and blow utilizing the weight of the horn in establishing a sound.

Maggio embouchure

A rare, puckered embouchure, sometimes used by jazz players for extremely high "screamer" notes. Maggio claimed that the pucker embouchure gives more endurance than some systems. Carlton MacBeth is the main proponent of the pucker embouchure. The Maggio system was established because Louis Maggio had sustained an injury which prevented him from playing. In this system you cushion the lips by extending them or puckering (like a monkey). This puckering enables the players to overcome physical malformations. It also lets the player play for an extended time in the upper register. The pucker can make it easy to use too open an aperture. Lots of very soft practice can help overcome this. Claude Gordon was student of Louis Maggio and Herbert L. Clarke and systematized the concepts of these teachers. Claude Gordon made use of pedal tones for embouchure development as did Maggio and Herbert L. Clarke. All three stressed that the mouthpiece should be placed higher on the top lip for a more free vibration of the lips.

Tongue-controlled embouchure

This embouchure method, advocated by a minority of brass pedagogues such as Jerome Callet, has not yet been sufficiently researched to support the claims that this system is the most effective approach for all brass performers.

Advocates of Callet's approach believe that this method was recommended and taught by the great brass instructors of the early 20th Century. Two French trumpet technique books, authored by Jean-Baptiste Arban, and St. Jacome, were translated into English for use by American players. According to some, due to a misunderstanding arising from differences in pronunciation between French and English, the commonly used brass embouchure in Europe was interpreted incorrectly. Callet attributes this difference in embouchure technique as the reason the great players of the past were able to play at the level of technical virtuosity which they did, although the increased difficulty of contemporary compositions for brass seem to indicate that the level of brass technique achieved by today's performers equals or even exceeds that of most performers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Callet's method of brass embouchure consists of the tongue remaining forward and through the teeth at all times. The corners of the mouth always remain relaxed, and only a small amount of air is used. The top and bottom lips curl inward and grip the forward tongue. The tongue will force the teeth, and subsequently the throat, wide open, supposedly resulting in a bigger, more open sound. The forward tongue resists the pressure of the mouthpiece, controls the flow of air for lower and higher notes, and protects the lips and teeth from damage or injury from mouthpiece pressure. Because of the importance of the tongue in this method many refer to this as a "tongue-controlled embouchure." This technique facilitates the use of a smaller mouthpiece, and larger bore instruments. It results in improved intonation and stronger harmonically related partials across the player's range.]

Flute embouchure

A variety of transverse flute

Flute

The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...

embouchures are employed by professional flutists, though the most natural form is perfectly symmetrical, the corners of the mouth relaxed, the lower lip placed along and at a short distance from the embouchure hole. The end-blown xiao

Xiao (flute)

The xiao is a Chinese vertical end-blown flute. It is generally made of dark brown bamboo . It is also sometimes called dòngxiāo , dòng meaning "hole." An ancient name for the xiāo is shùdí The xiao is a Chinese vertical end-blown flute. It is generally made of dark brown bamboo (called...

, kaval

Kaval

The kaval is a chromatic end-blown flute traditionally played throughout Azerbaijan, Turkey, Hungary, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Albania, Kosovo, southern Serbia , northern Greece , Romania , and Armenia...

, shakuhachi

Shakuhachi

The is a Japanese end-blown flute. It is traditionally made of bamboo, but versions now exist in ABS and hardwoods. It was used by the monks of the Fuke school of Zen Buddhism in the practice of...

and hocchiku

Hocchiku

, sometimes romanized as hocchiku or hochiku, is a Japanese end-blown flute , crafted from root sections of bamboo. After cleaning and sanding, the heavy root end of the bamboo stalk reveals many small circular knots where the roots formerly joined the stalk...

flutes demand especially difficult embouchures, sometimes requiring many lessons before any sound can be produced.

The embouchure is an important element to tone production. The right embouchure, developed with "time, patience, and intelligent work", will produce a beautiful sound and a correct intonation. The embouchure is produced with the muscles around the lips. These muscles have to be properly warmed up and exercised before practising. Tone development exercises including long notes and harmonics must be done as part of the warm up every day.

Reed instrument embouchure

With the woodwinds, aside from the flute

Flute

, piccolo

Piccolo

The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The piccolo has the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written...

, and recorder

Recorder

The recorder is a woodwind musical instrument of the family known as fipple flutes or internal duct flutes—whistle-like instruments which include the tin whistle. The recorder is end-blown and the mouth of the instrument is constricted by a wooden plug, known as a block or fipple...

, the sound is generated by a reed and not with the lips. The embouchure is therefore based on sealing the area around the reed and the mouthpiece. This serves to prevent air from escaping while simultaneously supporting the reed allowing it to vibrate, and to constrict the reed preventing it from vibrating too much. With woodwinds, it is important to ensure that the mouthpiece is not placed too far into the mouth, which would result in too much vibration (no control), often creating a sound an octave (or harmonic twelfth for the clarinet) above the intended note. If the mouthpiece is not placed far enough into the mouth, no noise will be generated, as the reed will not vibrate.

The embouchure for single reed woodwinds like the clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

and saxophone

Saxophone

The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

is formed by resting the reed upon the bottom lip, which is in turn supported by the bottom teeth. The top teeth then rest on top of the mouthpiece. In both saxophone and clarinet playing, the corners of the mouth are brought inwards (similar to a drawstring bag) in order to create a seal. With the less common double-lip embouchure, the top lip is placed under (around) the top teeth. In both instances, the position of the tongue in the mouth plays a vital role in focusing and accelerating the air stream blown by the player. This results in a more mature and full sound, rich in overtone

Overtone

An overtone is any frequency higher than the fundamental frequency of a sound. The fundamental and the overtones together are called partials. Harmonics are partials whose frequencies are whole number multiples of the fundamental These overlapping terms are variously used when discussing the...

s.

The double reed

Double reed

A double reed is a type of reed used to produce sound in various wind instruments. The term double reed comes from the fact that there are two pieces of cane vibrating against each other. A single reed consists of one piece of cane which vibrates against a mouthpiece made of metal, hardened...

woodwinds, the oboe

Oboe

The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

and bassoon

Bassoon

The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...

, have no mouthpiece. Instead the reed is two pieces of cane extending from a metal tube (oboe - staple) or placed on a bocal

Bocal

A bocal is the mouthpiece of a woodwind instrument. It's a curved, tapered tube, which is an integral part of certain woodwind instruments, including double reed instruments such as the bassoon, contrabassoon, English horn, and oboe d'amore, as well as the larger recorders...

(bassoon

Bassoon

, English horn

Cor anglais

The cor anglais , or English horn , is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family....

). The reed is placed directly on the lips and then played like the double-lip embouchure described above. Compared to the single reed woodwinds, the reed is very small and subtle changes in the embouchure can have a dramatic effect on tuning

Musical tuning

In music, there are two common meanings for tuning:* Tuning practice, the act of tuning an instrument or voice.* Tuning systems, the various systems of pitches used to tune an instrument, and their theoretical bases.-Tuning practice:...

, tone

Timbre

In music, timbre is the quality of a musical note or sound or tone that distinguishes different types of sound production, such as voices and musical instruments, such as string instruments, wind instruments, and percussion instruments. The physical characteristics of sound that determine the...

and pitch

Pitch (music)

Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...

control.

Polyphonic embouchure (finger-embouchure)

Recent "waterflute" installations as fountain

Fountain

A fountain is a piece of architecture which pours water into a basin or jets it into the air either to supply drinking water or for decorative or dramatic effect....

s in public parks allow for a kind of reverse-embouchure. Whereas traditional instruments are supplied with compressible fluid (air) from the mouth of a player, the new waterflutes supply incompressible fluid (water) to the player, and sound is made when the player resists this supply of fluid. Water flows out through mouths of the instrument and the player blocks this flow of water to make sound. As a result, the player can put one finger in each of several of the instrument's mouths, to play a chord, while independently controlling the embouchure of the sound made at each mouth. Additionally, the player's own mouth is free to sing along with the instrument, while the player can independently affect the sound of each of several different musical parts with this "finger embouchure". Such instruments are referred to as hydraulophone

Hydraulophone

A hydraulophone is a tonal acoustic musical instrument played by direct physical contact with water where sound is generated or affected hydraulically. Typically sound is produced by the same hydraulic fluid in contact with the player's fingers...

s. Finger-embouchure can be used to make a wide variety of sounds, ranging from a buzzing sound like that made by a defective faucet, to a very pure tone similar to the sound made by a glass harmonica. Finger embouchure can also be used to affect the intonation or temperament. For example, a skilled hydraulist

Hydraulist

A hydraulist is a musician who plays a hydraulic instrument, such as a water organ or a hydraulophone.Whereas hydraulists in Roman times pressed keys to open air valves to allow a water-powered wind source to blow air into wind pipes, modern hydraulists make sound with water, using a new instrument...

can use finger-embouchure to remain in a just intonation while changing keys, or to fluidly vary the intonation of a chord while it is sounding.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.