The Trumpet lesson videos on this page cover a great many topics pertaining to how to play the trumpet like a professional. Many of these trumpet videos were shot during actual trumpet lessons and will include one of my students in it.

Play everything on 1 and only 1 embouchure set.

Mouthpiece buzz to triple c.

Pencil exercise for low to high notes on trumpet.

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Pops The Trumpet Cop, trumpet cartoon videos answer serious trumpet questions. A great series for young or young at heart players.

Trumpet cartoon videos are a great way to get students attention and still teach meaningful lessons. Even my adult students love the trumpet cartoon videos and have learned from them.

Why take lessons with Pops.

Trumpet teaching is often 200 years behind times.

Use your embouchure tools in the right order.

Procrastination is our enemy.

Filming Lip Vibrations.

Why is there air in my sound?

Anchor Tonguing

Endurance and arch/anchor tonguing

About Resonance and mouthpiece buzzing (the aperture tunnel)

Why talent and desire don’t mean much

Pops the Trumpet Cop Videos

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Should Your Lips Be Sore After Practice or playing can be answered in one word.
NO!!!!!

The lips may be tired for a few minutes or the mouth corners for 15 minutes or so , but anything more that this is a sign that you have caused some damage. As for being sore until after the next days warmup. Well, that is way off base.
If you feel sore or tired the next day, then you bruised them and there is some swelling present. A competent teacher would never advise a student to play until that level of soreness was reached.

Also, that kind of soreness can only come from excessive mouthpiece pressure. What is normal and acceptable mouthpiece pressure for compressed lips (cushioned) is too much for flattened chops. You would be amazed at how many players set their chops and then unset (thin the lips and spread the embouchure) as they take a breath. This is the case in 80-85% of the cases that you described. I have not seen you play therefore I cannot say 100%.

No amount of lip pushups will cure this. Isometrics were only taught by Stevens to people who had a viable embouchure. For people who need some embouchure help (fine tuning) the embouchure must be fixed before the gross muscle building program begins. Remember holding a pencil between your lips is not the same as playing. One is for gross muscle building while the other requires a great deal of finesse training.

Finally, I would say that if you bruise your lips on a daily basis then the setting is spread. You can only play when mouthpiece pressure flattens them enough so that they are touching.

A visualizer is only to check where the center of your buzz is. It is still possible and likely to push against spread lips to force out a buzz. Also, I’ve seen many players start a session right and distort the lips as they breathe. So, a 20 second buzz with no breath included while using a visualizer would again be useless.

I would advise you to learn to buzz just your lips. Mendez made all new students buzz their lips 30 days. After 30 days they got a mouthpiece. After another 30 days they played the trumpet. The backpressure from the trumpet is a crutch. As is the mouthpiece. Plus buzzing the lips uses all of the playing muscles at once unlike other isometrics. Buzzing the lips uses the entire length of the lips. The mouthpiece divides it and prevents over half from buzzing. Set your lips close together, breathe through your nose (only for this example) and buzz them. After a couple of minutes of this sneak the horn up into playing position while you are buzzing. You should have a very full sound with no air. You will also need less mouthpiece pressure.

I like to advise some buzzing 15 minutes any day that you don’t practice. While it is true that hours of buzzing will stiffen the lips 15 minutes will not. BTW hours of isometrics will stiffen them also but with fewer tone building benefits.

Pops

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I was wondering why I have bad playing days. What can I do about them?

This Bad Playing Days thread has several related parts including embouchure, pressure, working on range, and normal off days.

If your lips feel sore or tired the next day, then you bruised them and there is some swelling present. That kind of soreness can only come from excessive mouthpiece pressure. What is normal and acceptable mouthpiece pressure for compressed lips (cushioned), is too much for flattened chops. You would be amazed at how many players set their chops and then unset (thin the lips and spread the embouchure) as they take a breath. This is the case in 75% of these cases.

No amount of lip pushups will cure this. Isometrics were only taught by Stevens to people who had a viable embouchure. For people who need some embouchure help (fine tuning) the embouchure must be fixed before the gross muscle building program begins.

Remember holding a pencil between your lips is not the same as playing. One is for gross muscle building while the other requires a great deal of finesse training.

I would say that if you bruise your lips on a daily basis then the setting is spread. You can only play when mouthpiece pressure flattens them enough so that they are touching. Also, I’ve seen many players start a session right and distort the lips as they breathe. I would advise you to learn to buzz just your lips. Mendez made all new students buzz their lips 30 days. After 30 days they got a mouthpiece. After another 30 days they played the trumpet. Buzzing the lips uses all of the playing muscles at once unlike other isometrics. Buzzing the lips uses the entire length of the lips. The mouthpiece divides it and prevents over half from buzzing.

The other 25% has bad days because they LEARNED to RELY on the swelling to FORM the embouchure. This is different in that they tend to learn a setup. If I play this long, then tomorrow will be good. There is a window of work because a certain amount of swelling is needed to play. They usually have a lip flap or mouthpiece ring that they need to keep pumped up in order to play. A really hard day hurts their playing for a couple of days. However, a couple of days off and they are at a loss to play also.

Let me assure you that a properly trained and formed embouchure requires NO set routine. It is nice to have a warmup, but you should be able to play with no ill effects without one. Also taking a day or two off should only affect your sound for a couple of minutes at your next playing session. And playing a really hard day should be taken care of by a warm down that day. The next day should not suffer at all.

Work for a close embouchure setting. Set your lips close together, breathe through your nose (only for this example) and buzz them. After a couple of minutes of this sneak the horn up into playing position while you are buzzing. You should have a very full sound with no air. You will also need less mouthpiece pressure. I like to advise some buzzing 5 minutes any day that you don’t practice. While it is true that hours of buzzing will stiffen the lips 5-15 minutes will not. BTW hours of isometrics will stiffen them also but with fewer tone building benefits.

What working on range is NOT.

Let’s look at how you developed your range. From low c to g on the staff, you played scales, etudes, songs, etc.. From high c to super c you played arpeggios holding the top note.

So, your lower register was developed by making music and it IS musical. While the upper register was ‘developed’ by making noise and it is NOT musical. I hope that my point is clear.

Arpeggios are only for power. To make music you must play music.

Maynard Ferguson developed his range by playing the Arban book an octave up. Jacoby had me use the Williams book. It’s the same idea.

To be reliable you have to play music. You have to work on tonguing, lip trills, vibrato, phrasing, you know total music. That’s what makes Maynard Ferguson, or Bill Chase different. They played musically.

So, you say that you have tried all of this yet still the notes don’t come out. Then you are not letting the sound out. There are several ways that this can happen. Too much lip compression will roll the lips in so far that the air can NOT come out. Too much pressure on your top lip can pin it and again hold in the sound. Finally, Too much lip curl will prevent the notes from coming out also.

Working past a bad day. A bad day is mental part of the time and the other times it is due to strain a day or two before. They are both cured the same way. Play a second line g over and over until it sounds good. Then play a simple melody. Mary had a little lamb would do. Play this over until the tone phrasing and tonguing are right. Play a c scale tongue each note 4 times. Do the scale until it is right.

Why so simple a workout over and over. Because IT IS MENTAL. Use your head to think about playing without worrying about notes. As ‘Jake’ used to say, ‘Where’s your head?’

Pops

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I want to stop using mouthpiece pressure. When I don’t use mouthpiece pressure, my playing is horrible.

You can NOT just stop using mouthpiece pressure.

You have to correct the reason that the pressure was needed first.

Then after you have a close-set embouchure, good breathing habits and good muscle strength you can work on reducing pressure.

Practice LIP Buzzing. It teaches you how to form your embouchure and makes the lips stronger.

Do the pencil exercise for 3-4 minutes at a time. (Most pressure players can barely do 20 seconds.) This builds muscle and shows you how to contract to play higher with less pressure.

Play at a whisper. This works the lip aperture to aid in pressure reduction.

Then play arpeggios using as little mouthpiece pressure as possible to get used to both the feel and to allow the lips to LEARN how to flex and contract to produce each note. The lips must be closer together with no pressure than they are with pressure.

No pressure is NOT an option. LESS pressure is.

The lips produce compression by lip against lip movement. They also can control the aperture by pulling the corners in to play high.

As a pressure player you never allowed your lips to do that so the muscles must be worked first.

Try to practice with this grip where the horn is resting on the thumb and 1 finger. Do NOT grab the valves or pinky ring.

Pops

.

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Can I hold a horn by 1 valve cap and play a High F or G? Yes I learned a long time ago how to Reduce Trumpet Mouthpiece Pressure.

Can I play anything real with that little pressure?

NO!

You shouldn’t feel pain or soreness when playing or after playing.

You can NOT just stop using pressure.
You have to correct the reason that the pressure was needed first.
Then after you have a close-set embouchure, good breathing habits and good muscle strength you can work to Reduce Trumpet Mouthpiece Pressure.

No pressure is NOT an option. LESS pressure is.

The lips produce compression by lip against lip movement. They also can control the aperture by pulling the corners in to play high. As a pressure player you never allowed your lips to do that AS the excessive pinned the lips in place and they couldn’t move enough to make compression. This is why the muscles must be worked first.

Play at a whisper. This works the lip aperture to aid in pressure reduction. This is one reason why the ENTIRE Clarke Technical studies book is marked pp-ppp.

You can open your left hand and stop grabbing the valves. The horn is now free to move some. Practice that way and you can reduce pressure.
Try a hand grip that I first wrote about 12 years ago. It helps you to use less pressure.

Don’t grab the horn and allow it to move slightly. Also don’t use the pinky ring with the right hand.

Pops

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I have had several people contact me saying; My Lip is Numb. A numb lip is a sign of way too much mouthpiece to lip pressure.

If the CAUSE is taken care of then it may go away. It could take months for the feeling to return. If enough damage is done to the nerves of the lip, then the feeling will never return.

Continued abuse will also damage more than the nerves. It will injure the muscles and not only affect playing but also appearance and speech.

This is VERY IMPORTANT. The mouthpiece to lip pressure has to stop TODAY !!!

I would suggest a month off of the horn. Hopefully the feeling will return in this time. Horse flapping (a loose buzz) will help.

If playing is to resume after a month off then I suggest lip buzzing. Lip buzzing (NO MOUTHPIECE) will teach a close embouchure setting and increase lip strength. This will make it easier to break the mouthpiece pressure that has been used as a substitute for a closed lip aperture.

I wish you the best of luck. Also please email me after being off the horn for a few weeks. We can then see how much damage there is and start some exercises to help. Do the buzzing.

Pops

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