Where are high notes? On the ceiling? Are low notes on the floor?
There are two factors that cause us to believe the Illusion of Up. When we begin playing we have no muscles in our embouchure and every note can seem 'heavy.' We feel like we have to hold our embouchure up for every note.
The worst part of the illusion is the very terms we use. High notes and low notes and middle range notes. High notes are written higher up on the page. Lower notes are written lower. They could be reversed. But if we turned music writing completely upside down it would confuse us because we believe the illusion.
What makes notes higher on a horn? We need to make the aperture smaller, increase tension in the lips and increase the speed of the air.
The things that we do to aim up - tensing the cheeks, turning the lower lip forward, raising the shoulders, etc. makes it more difficult to play high! Try to play straight ahead!
A demonstration we do frequently is to hold a finger up and ask a student to aim right at the finger tip and play a note. We then ask for a lower note and we move the finger tip higher. The player will see that you indeed can aim higher for a low note and lower for a high note.
There are two factors that cause us to believe the Illusion of Up. When we begin playing we have no muscles in our embouchure and every note can seem 'heavy.' We feel like we have to hold our embouchure up for every note.
The worst part of the illusion is the very terms we use. High notes and low notes and middle range notes. High notes are written higher up on the page. Lower notes are written lower. They could be reversed. But if we turned music writing completely upside down it would confuse us because we believe the illusion.
What makes notes higher on a horn? We need to make the aperture smaller, increase tension in the lips and increase the speed of the air.
The things that we do to aim up - tensing the cheeks, turning the lower lip forward, raising the shoulders, etc. makes it more difficult to play high! Try to play straight ahead!
A demonstration we do frequently is to hold a finger up and ask a student to aim right at the finger tip and play a note. We then ask for a lower note and we move the finger tip higher. The player will see that you indeed can aim higher for a low note and lower for a high note.
