Trombone Lesson: Great mouthpiece embouchure

Trombone Lesson: Great mouthpiece embouchure

Buzzing for great trombone chops

This is a simple little buzzing exercise that will help you improve airflow and get rid of bad habits related to attack or tonguing. I often use it as a warmup exercise, making it the first thing I play that day.

The important thing here is flow. Make sure that airflow does´t stop at any time when you play the legato part of the exercise. There should be no difference in the way you blow when you go from glissando to legato. The only thing that should happen in the legato section is that the tongue make small fast movements to create a smooth attack on each note. You can check in a morris to make sure that no unwanted face or mouth movements are triggered when you go from glissando to legato.

Play the pattern starting in a comfortable range where you have good control over sound and pitch on the mouthpiece. Try starting on a Bb or F, and gradually expand the range both up and down playing repeating the pattern.

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The procedure is the same when you go from glissando to staccato, but you will have to stop blowing between the notes when you play short notes. The focus should be on letting out small clouds of well behaving air without locking up the throat or making any unnecessary movement whatsoever! This can actually be quite hard, and you might have to work really slow and concentrated on this but, believe me, this can improve your trombone playing overall quite drastically!

Play great!

Anders

Please leave a comment if you are in doubt of how to approach this trombone buzzing exercise.

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2 Comments

  1. Jim 11 years ago

    The buzzing exercise starting from Bb asks me to play Bb, C, D, Eb, F, etc. With the mouthpiece in the instrument, I would extend the slide to play all of these notes except the Bb and the F. Do you intend that I should play the exercise using the mouthpiece alone, and, if so, how?

    Forgive a beginner.

    Thanks,

    Jim

  2. Anders 11 years ago

    Hi Jim

    Yes, the exercise is intended to be played on mouthpiece only. Just as you can shift pitch with your voice, you can do it with on the mouthpiece alone. This will help you gain control over the muscles you use to produce certain notes, and make the same notes more precise when played on the trombone.

    Good luck!

    Anders

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