Original Message From Tim Leahey 

Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 9:37 PM

To: 'Joe Jackson'

Subject: FW: Lip injury

Dude, read this guy's story & see if you have any advice since you're the chop dr. I didn't want to give him your info in case you're not into it, but I'm sure you could help him much better than I could. L8

- T

Original Message From "John Doe"

Sent: Thursday, August 14, 2003 11:36 AM

To: Jazztptguy

Subject: Re: Lip injury

 Hi Tim, I'm guessing you're back from vacation. My story is this. About a year or so ago, I was working a rather long  (two day) big band recording call. Most of the charts were loud and high. At the end of the session, the bone section was ask to overdub a couple of sections. My chops were shot, but as we all do on occasion, I forced it out. It was the first time in my career that I had real difficulties making notes. That appears to be the final straw to what may have been, as I look back, trouble brewing for perhaps about a year. From that day to today, I have been unable to reestablish any consistent strength in my playing. I have rested for as much as two months, played slow, soft and focused for the same amount of time, attempted a buzzing regime, pretended I didn't have a problem, tried just about everything that I can think of - long tones, short tones, lip flexibility exercises, tonguing exercises, starting high and working down, starting low and working up.  You name it, I've tried it. Some days (moments really) I can get close to my original sound and when that happens I try to internalize that feeling, but it doesn't usually last for more than a couple of days. I have contacted several brass players that have had difficulties at some point in their career but none have had the symptoms I am struggling with.  Let me briefly describe the symptoms. My mid register sound, about one octave, is flat with no harmonic structure - it sounds like someone just starting on the trombone. The sound is much better in my upper and lower register but consistently hitting notes in the upper register is difficult. If I try to use my tongue in a staccato or marcato approach, it exasperates the problem in all registers and accuracy fails miserably. The majority of the time I try to start a musical passage, I begin on the partial below the one I am intending to begin on and I am consistently on the low side of the pitch (even though I try to play centered).  

Thanks again for your time, John Doe

Original Message From Joe Jackson

Sent: Friday, August 15, 2003 7:55 AM

To: Jazztptguy

Subject: Re: Lip injury

Hey Timmy.

I have never heard of a "chop problem" that started at a particular timedue to a particular trauma that occured while playing - so this may be outside of anything I can suggest.

However, if it is not outside of the "norm" for chop problems, my experience is that chop problems are manisfestations of a playing approach that have had a fundamental problem for years and years, just that suddenly something that allowed the player to get away with it all those years stops working.

I have several suggestions - but as I said if this case is truly unique none of them may work:

The fact that he is an experienced professional and is discovering that he is playing consistently flat makes me think that he might be doing the same thing you were, which is trying to play with too big an airstream and trying to use the chops to muscle the airstream into the correct aperture size.

One suggestion is to try very hard to concentrate on the following: push air from the very bottom of the airstream (the gut), and concentrate positioning the mouth as if you are speaking certain syllables that correspond with the range you are playing. For example, if one is slurring from "F" in the staff up to Bb, D & then F, my "syllables" would be "AHHH - AEEEH - EEEH - EEEE".

The reason I say syllables is that it is not only important to elevate the tongue to focus the air; I have found it even more helpful to get the whole mouth into the act and the syllable idea seems to be a good physiometric tool to get there.

Now if, on the other hand, I try to play an "F" above the staff with an "AAAHHH" syllable, it makes a big sound, but it sounds flat and with sort of a wooden tone. So just maybe the air focusing issue might be part of the key to John's troubles.

Another way of looking at this issue is the bel canto singing style that Sam Burtis taught me. Sam noticed that the truly great opera singers use a huge "chest voice" to sing in the middle and lower registers, but transition to a good measure to their "head voice" in the middle/upper and upper registers. What he belives this translates to on trombone is compacting the airstream as one moves higher on the trombone.

The reason for this is that while many players with very strong chops can get away from not modulating the airstream and using the sheer strength of the chops to constrict and vibrate the column, it makes playing much harder, and it can fall apart very quickly. This is another reason why my intuition is pointing me to this in John's case.

Try thinking of it this way: the job of the lips needs to be to vibrate the air column, period, and the best players *never* literally think about their lips when they are playing. All of the controls needed to operate the lips can be exerted merely by imaging the sound quality one wants to exert.

But in order to relieve the chops of all of the responsibilities other than vibrating (e.g. shaping the airstream, moving up and down on the horn), the air column has to be properly shape *prior* to being presented to the aperture. If the airstream is in the precisely perfect shape and speed when it hits the lips, then the note is going to be perfect when it comes out. Woodwind players understand this; it is difficult for brass players to.

So all of the breathing components have to be in the business not just of pushing air, but shaping the airstream as well!

I hope this helps him.

another suggestion: joint the Online Trombone Journal at:

http://www.trombone.org/forum

, start a new topic explaining the problem in the practice room.

He can get many more suggestions than mine; in fact, Tom Ashworth is currently a guest moderator there and he is absolutely tremendous at troubleshooting such problems. He'll only be there for another week so I urge John to do that soon if he intends to.

I am very concerned about his situation; I hope either he or you can keep me informed as to whether any of my suggestions work. Of course he can contact me if he wishes.

Best,

Joe Jackson