Playing Off to the Side

Two Schools

There are two opposing schools of thought when it comes to the subject of centering the embouchure. There are those who believe that you MUST put the mouthpiece in the very center of the lips. Then there are others who DON'T. I'm from the second school, simply because I play off to the side. But I don't want to waste my time and yours explaining why. That really doesn't matter. Instead, I want to offer some thoughts about some of my experiences and discoveries which are directly related to playing off to the side. I do this with hopes that it may help those specific players who play off to the side the way I do.

Unexplored Subject

This is actually a fairly unexplored subject. Most books which cover this subject never really get past the "should you" or "shouldn't you" comments. Nothing is ever really said about HOW to play off to the side. Nothing is said about the differences between playing off to the side or playing on a centered embouchure (the biggest exception to this being Dr. Rheinhart's pivot work). 

And I find this kind of humorous...simply because those who do play off to the side do not do it out of choice. It's just the way they play. Any comments made about "should you" or "shouldn't you" are irrelevant....as irrelevant as saying that the weather should be nice today. So, for a book to spend time on "should you" or "shouldn't you", on a subject which is beyond our control, seems pointless. Hopefully  I won't fall into that same trap. 

I've always played off to the side. I've been playing this way for over twenty-five years now. So what I'm about to write is based on my own experiences.

Instrument Angle

The first and probably the most important thing I want to discuss is the angle of the horn in relationship to the head. For years (for way too many years) I tried to force myself to point the trumpet straight ahead, as in the diagram below:

Also, for years, I had terrible accuracy problems. I cracked so many notes that it was almost "my thing". Cracked notes were a way of life for me. But these cracked notes were being caused by the fact that I was playing off to the side, but trying to force my instrument to point straight ahead. This doesn't work. It causes too much pressure on the center of the lips and not enough pressure on the other side of the mouthpiece. 

It took me a long time to figure this out. But now, when I play, I point my instrument at an angle like the next diagram shows:

(top view)

This puts equal pressure on both sides of the mouthpiece and greatly reduces the numbers of cracked notes. It also eliminates the escaping air from the left side of my mouth, which I was getting because the mouthpiece wasn't "sealing" on that side. 

So that is, in my opinion, the most important thing about playing with a mouthpiece placement which is off to the side of the lips, not centered. In most cases this means that the instrument should not be pointed straight ahead, but should be pointed also off to the side. 

How?

But knowing it and doing it are two different things. When you first begin playing this way, there's a tendency to "miss the mark" and either angle the instrument too far to the side or not far enough. How do you know exactly where to point the trumpet?

I found something which helped me a lot with this problem. Consider this; when you play at higher volumes, the lips get "blown into place" and a lot of times the mouthpiece will seal just because the air pressure is pushing the lips against the mouthpiece. But when you play very softly, this doesn't happen. When you play very softly, there isn't enough air pressure to push the lips far enough to seal a gap that big. 

I sort of learned this on accident while practicing my "Recovery Routine". I discovered that practicing at ppp dynamics forces me to make those minute adjustments in the angle of my instrument. After doing this often enough, the newer angle feels more natural and is easier to maintain in performance. Before this, I knew what needed to be done. I knew I wanted to point the instrument in a different direction, but I couldn't FEEL that angle. I couldn't make those minute adjustments yet. But the soft playing over exaggerates those needs and helps to quicken the learning process.

When It's Necessary

One thing you might be wondering is what to do when you HAVE to point your bell straight ahead. Well, to do this, when I have to, all I do is move my head as if looking a little to the right. Thank God I don't have to march anymore, but sometimes I have microphone placements to deal with which force me to play with my horn facing straight ahead. When this happens, I just turn my head. I don't like to do this much, but the results are a lot more "musically favorable" than the alternative. 

Lip Buzz and the Mouthpiece Placement Exercise

I know I talk about lip buzz a lot. I keep trying to explain to people that I don't really use lip buzz for strength development, the way many players do. I use it as a learning tool. Lip buzz can teach us a lot of things about our own playing that we cannot learn from any other source. 

When you do the "Mouthpiece Placement Exercise", it helps develop a "feel" for good mouthpiece positioning. This exercise involves sustaining a lip buzz and then placing the mouthpiece on that buzz, without letting the note stop. I originally created this exercise for my students who were relearning how to play, after getting braces (or having braces removed). But I soon found merit in doing this exercise myself and later began teaching it to ALL of my students. 

Again, this kind of exercise is more of a learning tool than anything else. And I think that some people misunderstand what I mean by this statement. I'm not saying, for example, that doing lip buzz teaches us the "Right Way" to play. No, instead, doing lip buzz forces us to explore the role of the lips in our own playing. Doing the "Mouthpiece Placement Exercise" doesn't teach us the "Right Way" to place the mouthpiece on the lips. Instead, if forces us to explore the relationship between the lips and the mouthpiece. What you do with your discoveries from doing these exercises is a highly personalized thing.

Getting to the point, one of the things that you can learn from you experiments with lip buzz and the "Mouthpiece Placement Exercise" is how to deal with the specific qualities of your own embouchure. One of those qualities is whether or not your mouthpiece is centered or not. If you play off to the side, the way I do, lip buzz and the "Mouthpiece Placement Exercise" can teach you things about your own playing which will help deal with your specific embouchure type.

Summary