HOW TO PLAY "HIGH NOTES" ON TRUMPET

I'm just preparing for the trumpet players in the comment section being like I can play higher than that rooll title as brass players we are obsessed with three things highspeed Railway Smencils and World War II no we're obsessed with playing higher playing louder and playing longer today I'm going to address a little bit about playing higher now if you clicked on this video thinking it's a tutorial on how to play a double C in 20 minutes this ain't for you Chief instead I'm going to give you three tips on how to practice your upper register in a safe and healthy way let's get into it the first thing you have to do before you set out to seriously develop your range is to change your thought process on the upper register now I know what you're thinking I clicked on this video to learn how to play my high notes and his first tip is just change your mindset man hear me out there are a lot of videos of amazing trumpet players screaming in the extreme upper register they're talented they're inspiring but for every Wayne berson clip or Maynard Ferguson video you might step back and look at your own playing and say I'll never be able to play like that your worth as a brass player is not defined by your ability to play high notes in fact there's a difference between high notes and the upper register middle C is a high note for my beginners in sixth grade a g at the top of the staff is a high note for my high school students high notes are subjective what was high for you two years ago probably isn't high for you now your definition of what a high note is is going to change the more you practice ractice and develop on your instrument so if you're a trumpet player and you can comfortably play to a g at the top of the staff that's great there is so much great music out there for you to play for yourself and for others and if you practice hard and smart you'll be able to develop that upper register but what is the upper register we said high notes are subjective but the upper register is actually something that we can Define with a fairly uniform consensus a majority of method books and pedagogy text that I have read specifically for trumpet Define the upper register as g at the top of the staff going up to our high C anything above that we can call the extreme upper register developing your upper register takes time and patience there's no quick trick to start playing up there overnight instead if you learn a science-based approach to playing up there you'll be able to develop your range and your endurance in a healthy way as brass players we need to be able to play in the upper register with strength but also with sensitivity so how should we approach that upper register should you be a hammer or should you be a scalpel in my opinion it is easier to develop your upper register by practicing at a softer Dynamic here's why to make our lips vibrate when we play a brass instrument our lips need to be able to resist the wind speed this is what helps us form our aperture the point of our lips that actually vibrates to do this we need to strengthen the muscles surrounding our lips these muscles are weak our lips are going to get blown apart by the force of our wind and then they won't vibrate translation the more force or wind that you use the stronger these muscles have to be boom physics so if you try to get into that upper register by playing loudly you're probably going to burn these Corner muscles out real quickly and that causes a lot of bad habits the most common bad habit that brass players engage in when they're fatigued is using too much mouthpiece pressure this causes lip stiffness swelling and in extreme cases bruising and even nerve damage if you keep trying to access your upper register by using Brute Force you're going to seriously hurt yourself so instead of strength focus on coordination we have to coordinate our Corner muscles our tongue Arch and our air speed to play in the upper register we can work on these things softly an exercise that I use to work on my coordination is something you should already be doing every day play your scales so I'm going to play my two octave G scale at a metop piano or Meto Forte Dynamic I'm focusing on keeping a consistent tone from my low to Middle to Upper register after I play through G I'll do a flat and a and so so on until I play my two octave C scale as I continue playing higher on the instrument the upper register notes are going to sound a little bit smaller that's because my focus is on my coordination not my sound [Music] projection [Music] but as I said earlier brass players need to be able to play softly and loudly in the upper register so once we've developed our coordination to access those notes we have to work on our power to work on this try adding a crescendo to your two octave scales grow all the way up to the top note and then day Crescendo on your way down to the [Music] bottom [Music] just remember it's important to develop the coordination first before you start to work on strength and power this will take time which takes me to my final tip Believe It or Not musicians and Brass players in particular have to be able to perform athletic Feats in order to play their instruments sure we're not hitting home runs or scoring touchdowns or dating Taylor Swift but we're putting in hard work not unlike going to the gym for some sick gains if you're preparing for a recital or a concert or maybe a marching band competition it's a lot like training for a marathon you have to build your endurance to be able to play from the top of the program to the bottom of the program without burning out building range on the other hand is a different kind of training entirely to learn how to build our upper register we must look to powerlifters when a powerlifter goes to the gym they are there for hours not unlike how us musicians spend hours in a practice room generally speaking powerlifters lift really high weights for low reps they're not training for endurance they're training for strength when training for strength we have to let our muscles recover between sets if we want to perform optimally on the next set if we don't take that time to rest we will not perform at our best we might even use poor technique and wind up hurting ourselves so when we are working on our high notes it is important to rest as much as you play now we should be applying this concept of resting as much as we play on a macro level and a micro level on a macro level resting as much as you play might inform how you schedule out your practice for the week if you work your range on Monday make maybe Tuesday you use to work on articulation or lip slurs or some technical studies there's so many other things for us to work on as brass musicians besides playing as high as we can resting as much as you play might even mean taking a day off can he say that I just did it is perfectly acceptable and even healthy to take a day off to rest your muscles and rest your brain for me my day off have been Thursdays cuz that's the day I go into to teach at my elementary school and Lord knows I don't want to practice after a day of dealing with the public school system just kidding I I I I very much enjoy my job it makes me very happy so that is how we rest on a macro level but how can we apply this to a micro level for me when I'm trying to rest as much as I play while practicing my range typically I like to think through whatever I just played in my head to give my muscle time to relax before I go on to play the next exercise so if I'm working on my scales I'll play a scale I'll sing that scale in my head and then I'll go on and play my next scale you might even find while you're working on your high notes that you need even more time to recover it's totally okay to take 2 to 5 minutes to rest and recover so that you can play at your optimal level of performance if you're looking for a book that adheres to this philosophy of resting as much as you play check out the first Trumpeter by Jim Maxwell not only is this one of the most comprehensive books I have on Jazz technique but the lyrical udes in the back of the book actually incorporate rests in between periods of playing in the upper register check it out here's the atude I'm going to demonstrate for you guys notice I play for about five measures and then I have four measures of rest what I like about this atude is I'm not up in the upper register the whole time but it does have me approaching the upper register through wider intervals I'm going to play this atude at a softer Dynamic focusing on that coordination before I ever start to increase that volume and work on my strength so without further Ado let's give it a [Music] shot for measures of rest later for measures of rest [Music] later so there you go I hope you learned something from this video if you thought this video was helpful you should totally check out the other video I did on some of the habits that might be preventing you from accessing that upper register also go check out some of the quintet's music we've had a blast rehearsing and recording these pieces to share with you guys if you enjoyed this lesson be sure to subscribe so you don't miss any of our music videos sheet music or more brass tips like this we'll see you in the next one

Channel: The Lakes Brass Quintet

Views: 14,961

Keywords: brass quintet, brass, chamber music, The Lakes Brass Quintet, dci, drum corps, boa, Bands of America, Trumpet, Trombone, Tuba, French horn, Concert Band, Wind Ensemble, Euphonium, Baritone, flugelhorn, piccolo trumpet, bass trombone, teacher, music teacher, pedagogy, brass pedagogy, brass tips, trumpet lesson, trumpet high notes, trumpet lessons

Id: CzFWaiR2WiU

Length: 11min 55sec (715 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 16 2024