Templating

We spend so much time and effort trying to learn what the inside of our mouth should be and how to shape the air it is a pity to waste it. But that's what many of us do.

How likely are we to hit the half note cleanly? Much of it depends on what we do during the eighth notes and the quarter rest.

If we play the eighth notes nicely then we want to use them as examples, as templates for what is coming up.

Many players would move their mouths and let their throats collapse as their System changes and relaxed during the rest.  Not Left Coast Players! We would try to keep our entire system as much the same as possible  so that we keep our set up to use on the next note.

Consider this snippet. Now we have not only a different note after the rest but it is an octave higher! What to do..

Most players would spend the quarter rest raising their shoulders (and eyeballs), tensing the throat and perhaps taking a shallow, hamster like breath - all things that make the top note harder!

Left Coast Players know what to do. We try to keep our System as much the same as possible. We will try to aim for both Gs in the same place with as little change in our embouchure or the inside of our mouth as possible.

We will stay still during the rest and use the G eighth note as a template for the upper note. Even if we take a breath we will try to keep our mouth as still as possible.

Instead of re-creating our system for the new note we keep the one we had just been using.

If you ask most horn players what the most important note of this phrase is you will get different answers but to us there is only one - it's the first note.

It's the note we are most likely to clam. It's also the most useful note!

If you are careful and play a well supported, cleanly tongued note then you have a template, an example of how to have your system shaped for the rest of the phrase. Since we are trying to make all the notes feel as much the same as possible we want to be extra careful to make the first note nice and use it for all the following notes.

Templating is also very useful for developing low and high ranges. Start your drills in your mid range and move up or down slowly, trying to keep the mouth shape of the mid range as much as possible.

Six Places - The Most Important Exercise

Six Places is a quick exercise that makes us sensitive to the different parts of the body that can be used to breath in and out. Doing this several times a day, especially right before and during practice will develop breathing habits that enable you to control the air - and your sound and your technical abilities!

This is simply an exercise to teach you where the air should be controlled by your body. Obviously you can’t put air below your belly button, but developing and using the muscles there will get you the tone and control we work for in Left Coast Horn Playing.

By concentrating on using the muscles in Place #6 we get the big fat brass sound we want and great control over the air. Six Places teaches us where to control the air by focusing on where most people go wrong and showing us what is right.

A brass player, more than anything else, is an air delivery system. How you deliver the air to your embouchure is more important than the kind of horn or mouthpiece you play, the strength of your chops or anything else.

Proper breathing will overcome a less than perfect embouchure but no embouchure can fix your playing if your breathing is incorrect. There is no more important principle in Left Coast playing.

The Six Places

Place #1: the nose
Place #2: the cheek
Place #3: the throat
Place #4: halfway down the sternum, or to sound fancy between the sternum and xiphoid
Place #5: halfway between the bottom of the sternum (the xiphoid) and belly button
Place #6: one inch below your belly button

To practice Six Places we breathe in while touching the places air can be controlled in our bodies and try to feel like we are putting the air in that place. So for Place one we touch our nose and try to put air just in there. Touching the places is very important as it helps your body remember where they are and what they feel like.

The sound of each breath should be distinct enough to hear the change from the wheeze of air going into the nose to the low oh syllable formed when air goes into Place Number Six.

Very important - notice we said the oh sound. Not an ah sound, which is indicative of high breathing. Try breathing in and making an ah sound then an oh sound and you’ll see that the air is controlled from higher up with the ah sound. Bad mojo!

Also very important - the oh sound is for breathing in. Sometimes you will want to use that mouth and throat shape when exhaling but not always. It depends on the sound you want to make. But when you are breathing in you almost always want the oh sound.

The only time you should use an ah sound when inhaling is when you purposely want to make an airy unsupported sound, for example when trying to blend and stay out of the way of a singer or woodwind player.

Getting Your Posture Right

Frequently our posture keeps us from being able to use the muscles in Place #6 correctly. It is imperative that the muscles around Place #6 are relaxed before we start or we can't use them to control the air.

To find out if your posture puts you in a position to use your lower ab muscles do the following

• Stand up straight. 
• Put two fingers on either side of your belly button. Lower them one inch. 
• Bend backwards and you will feel those muscles tighten as they help to support your back. 
• Now straighten your back and lean forward until you feel those muscles relax. That is the position you must be in to breath from Place Number Six.

To sit properly you have to be in a position where you can hold the horn comfortably and have Place Number Six control the flow of air.

Six Places is a great exercise to use with young players as it is easy for them to understand ‘you are pushing from place two’ than any explanation of diaphragmatic breathing or using a device to train them.

How it should work

Imagine holding a plastic bag upright. Gather the top together so the opening is small and round and you can blow into to inflate the bag. When the bag is inflated you could push the air out by squeezing the equator of the bag, right in the middle and pressing horizontally. You will expell the air but the pressure you create will be pushing the air up - and down. This is why so many young players notes sound  like footballs, notes that start quietly, get louder in the middle then die away. It’s also one of the main sources of clams.

When the air pressure changes up and down like that the mouth is constantly changing shape. When the air pressure diminishes at the end of a note the airway constricts making it even more difficult to get the next note out correctly.