Sounds weird… Having surgery on your lip… Well, it might not be as rare as you think.
Constantly pressing a piece of metal against your lips doesn’t really sound like a good or safe idea… Yet, musicians do it every day.
The lips are a very sensitive and delicate membrane (you’ll have to search for a more technical definition). Taking proper care of them is paramount. From what I’ve read and experienced so far, I’d say these are the top three things you can do to protect your embouchure:
Use Proper Technique – The best way to get this is from someone who already has it, like an instructor. I did not have lessons until I was a senior in high school. By then, it was extremely difficult to unlearn any bad habits I had adopted.
Don’t Over-Do-It – A classic rooky mistake: Too much pressure, not enough rest. “Higher, faster and louder” may be the trumpet mantra, but it is also a recipe for disaster without the proper playing technique AND rest. When we’re young, we think we’re invincible. You have to learn to play relaxed! High or low register… It doesn’t matter! Hopefully, you will gain wisdom from advice and instruction rather than personal experience with injury. For me, a short stint in Drum Corp brought that lesson home for me. Too much pressure, not enough rest and three days to learn an entire show were all that it took.
Warm-up & Cool-Down – Athletes do it and so should you. Your lips are just like an athlete’s body. They require preparation and attention. It is clear that without such preparation, an athlete is at a much greater risk for injury. One does not warm-up playing in the stratosphere, nor does one warm-down by simply ceasing to play. Had I even thought about this issue when I was younger, I may have been able to prevent the injury that I sustained. It doesn’t take that much time, but it can pay huge dividends in the future. In that light, look at it like you are investing in a long term fund. You may not see the results right away, but years from now you will reap the rewards of a prosperous portfolio.
Once you read this article from the Jazz Times, you will soon realize that lip injuries are common among professionals as well. Sadly, it would seem that many of their injuries were caused by some of these same rooky mistakes. While several of these accounts have happy endings, it should be taken to heart that many-a-career has also been ruined by similar injuries.
All the advice in the world won’t do you a bit of good unless you take it.
If you don’t heed the warnings early, it will only be a matter of time before you start experiencing problems. Here are some important quotes from the article I mentioned, just in case you didn’t read it yet:
“It’s really something when you lose your chops like that,” Hubbard told me in a 2008 interview. “You feel like a motherless child.”
“With Freddie, I think it was just an abuse of the lip tissue,” says Faddis. “Back in the ’60s and ’70s, Freddie used to pick up the horn without warming up and he would just blow as long and as hard as he could. I used to do that too when I was young, like in my teens, but I wouldn’t even think about doing that now.”
“With Freddie, I think it was just an abuse of the lip tissue,” says Faddis. “Back in the ’60s and ’70s, Freddie used to pick up the horn without warming up and he would just blow as long and as hard as he could. I used to do that too when I was young, like in my teens, but I wouldn’t even think about doing that now.”
“And you can’t have tension coming into it when you play the trumpet,” Faddis continues. “Look at pictures of Miles when he played—he was very relaxed. Look at pictures of Dizzy in the late ’50s and early ’60s—he was playing very relaxed. So there has to be a certain amount of relaxation when one is playing, and you can’t force it. That’s the thing that I find most young trumpet players have a problem with. They force things and then nothing happens anymore. Their chops are exhausted. So with my students at Purchase, I try to give them exercises right from the first lesson that will prevent them from forcing in that way. But developing the chops takes time. You can’t abuse them—you have to rest, you have to treat them with kid gloves and it’ll be alright.”
“It’s important to be as prepared as possible,” he says. “Practice as diligently as possible to alleviate any problems. But you have to warm up prior to playing, and one thing that works really well is to warm down after the show by playing long tones, scales and lip slurs. Because when you’re playing, you’re putting a lot of pressure on the embouchure, and it may get inflamed. And the warm down helps you to regain that pliability. I don’t do it as much as I used to but warming down after the show is always a good thing.”
“I was pretty sure at that point that I would never play trumpet again, but I found Dr. McGrail, who not only does the surgery to correct Satchmo’s Syndrome but he has also invented a series of physical therapy exercises for the lip where you basically work your lip against your teeth. And in doing these exercises, I was able to rebuild my lip and go back to playing normal.”
Posted via email from Music Tech Talk on Posterous
Blogging, Composition, D. M. Gardner, Misc, Music-Related, New Music, Posted by Email | Music Tech Talk | 
May 31, 2010 | 
Comments (0) 
I was pulling off nice clear D’s for a couple minutes at a time on the old embouchure 
Subscribe
