What makes a high note high? Are they on the ceiling? Are low notes down by your shoes?
When we begin playing we have the feeling that the notes are either somewhere up on the ceiling or down on the floor. Do you remember how high notes in the staff felt?! We tend to develop these exaggerated habits early. We call it The Illusion of Up. We’ll show you how to get past them.
One of the great illusions of music is thinking high and low. We only call them high and low because of the way we write them. In reality what we think of as high and low notes are really short wave length notes and longer wave length notes. Understanding this allows us to stop doing things that not only don’t help but make it more difficult!
The bit of your upper lip that creates our sound stays in one place as we play. It is our Target and we need to learn how to focus the air at it so that it does what we want it to. We can change the angle of the airstream as it hits the Target to play higher or lower but to play efficiently you must have the air aimed at the Target.
Our air is like a violin bow and the place it rubs to make the sound is the Target. And just like a violin if we change the angle of the air or move it we radically reduce the quality and efficiency of our playing. The analogy is not perfect but it is edifying.
If you asked most players where they aim for their notes they would give a pattern that looks like a ladder - aiming low for the low notes down by the floor and aiming somewhere higher for higher notes. It would never occur to them that they don’t have to.
It’s easy to demonstrate that we don’t need to aim up to play high notes. Pick out a spot on a wall to aim at and play a note in your middle register trying to aim your air right at that spot. Then pick out a spot lower on the wall and aim at it and play a higher note. It should be no problem.
It isn’t aiming up or down that changes your pitch. It’s the size of the aperture (the hole where the air escapes your lips), the speed, aim and intensity of the air and the tension of the upper lip.
Aiming up or down or opening your mouth to play low or any of those kinds of motions make it more difficult to play correctly! If as you aim up to play higher you take the focus of the air from the Target and tense your tongue, face and throat muscles you impede the flow of air and wreck its focus.
Aiming and tonguing are very closely related. If your tongue is close to your lips when you play you can focus the air right at the Target. If the tip of your tongue is too far back then the air swirls and changes before it hits the Target giving you less control and efficiency.
When you have an entrance and you are worried about hitting the first note, see a bulls-eye right in the middle of your upper lip where it meets the lower lip. Having a place to aim at gives you something for your mind to do. It’s so much more accurate than just worrying increases accuracy by a large percentage.
When we begin playing we have the feeling that the notes are either somewhere up on the ceiling or down on the floor. Do you remember how high notes in the staff felt?! We tend to develop these exaggerated habits early. We call it The Illusion of Up. We’ll show you how to get past them.
One of the great illusions of music is thinking high and low. We only call them high and low because of the way we write them. In reality what we think of as high and low notes are really short wave length notes and longer wave length notes. Understanding this allows us to stop doing things that not only don’t help but make it more difficult!
The bit of your upper lip that creates our sound stays in one place as we play. It is our Target and we need to learn how to focus the air at it so that it does what we want it to. We can change the angle of the airstream as it hits the Target to play higher or lower but to play efficiently you must have the air aimed at the Target.
Our air is like a violin bow and the place it rubs to make the sound is the Target. And just like a violin if we change the angle of the air or move it we radically reduce the quality and efficiency of our playing. The analogy is not perfect but it is edifying.
If you asked most players where they aim for their notes they would give a pattern that looks like a ladder - aiming low for the low notes down by the floor and aiming somewhere higher for higher notes. It would never occur to them that they don’t have to.
It’s easy to demonstrate that we don’t need to aim up to play high notes. Pick out a spot on a wall to aim at and play a note in your middle register trying to aim your air right at that spot. Then pick out a spot lower on the wall and aim at it and play a higher note. It should be no problem.
It isn’t aiming up or down that changes your pitch. It’s the size of the aperture (the hole where the air escapes your lips), the speed, aim and intensity of the air and the tension of the upper lip.
Aiming up or down or opening your mouth to play low or any of those kinds of motions make it more difficult to play correctly! If as you aim up to play higher you take the focus of the air from the Target and tense your tongue, face and throat muscles you impede the flow of air and wreck its focus.
Aiming and tonguing are very closely related. If your tongue is close to your lips when you play you can focus the air right at the Target. If the tip of your tongue is too far back then the air swirls and changes before it hits the Target giving you less control and efficiency.
When you have an entrance and you are worried about hitting the first note, see a bulls-eye right in the middle of your upper lip where it meets the lower lip. Having a place to aim at gives you something for your mind to do. It’s so much more accurate than just worrying increases accuracy by a large percentage.
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