What is the altissimo shift?

[happyroman]

The following is a passage from Brian Frederiksen’s Song and Wind presenting Jacobs personal experience with embouchure as a university student:

“Many players will have considerable difficulty playing in the low range at first, but usually the embouchure learns to cope with the low vibratory rate on a trial and error basis. There is a general principle of embouchure involved in producing range on the tuba. In descending into the lower range of the tuba, we play with somewhat thicker surfaces as they will vibrate more slowly and still give a firm sound. The opposite is true in the extreme upper range. Rotate the lips inward upon themselves rather than assuming a broad a smiling position. The resulting tighter lip surfaces will vibrate faster. We must be sure that the lips do not become stiff, or it will be difficult to obtain proper response.”

“There has been much controversy about shifting the placement of the mouthpiece for various ranges. When Jacobs first entered the Curtis Institute, he had difficulty with the high range. “When I got to classes and to my private studio with Philip Donatelli, I could hardly play the high notes. One day I asked Donatelli to play a passage from Berlioz’s Overture to Benvenuto Cellini. I was having problems getting the high G in that particular piece. Because he had a short upper lip, Donatelli had a mouthpiece with the top of the rim cut off making a flat section so it could fit under his nose. He simply shifted the mouthpiece placement up where he would play into the small section of the mouthpiece near the bottom when he would go up to high G.”

“Here I was, a former trumpet player and thought, ‘My God, he is changing his lip—his embouchure!’ I had read articles that advised never to change the embouchure. I had accepted this advice and never changed. When I saw him change, I took the horn back and tried the same thing. I played the G above high C, and the G above the G above the high C. I practically had all the high notes on the tuba that I did on the trumpet by using a trumpet embouchure. I never had any trouble with high notes after that.”

Frankly, I have never heard of an altissimo shift, but this shift by Donatelli that Jacobs discusses, and adopted, may be the kind of shift you are asking about.

[happyroman]

I also think that there is a common misconception regarding the definition of embouchure. It is the area of the lips inside the cup of the mouthpiece that actually vibrates. But many people define it as the entire facial structure that is visible outside the mouthpiece, including the location where the mouthpiece is placed on the lips (i.e., what they can see). This is an area where many people run into problems because the area of the face that one can see is not similar in appearance to the facial structure of other players, so they think they need to change their embouchure to something that is more conventional.

[happyroman]

Here's an analogy I thought of this morning. If you compare the embouchure to a golf swing, the part of the lips that vibrate inside the cup are like impact, and what is going on outside the cup is the motion of the swing that gets the clubhead to impact. There are all sorts of funky looking swings on the PGA Tour that produce excellent shots because they deliver the clubhead to the ball in a manner that produces a great impact position. Similarly, due to individual physiology, like tooth and facial structure, there are many different looking embouchures that produce beautiful sounds because what is going on inside the cup, where the lips actually vibrate and produce the sound, and are functioning very well. The stuff outside the cup supports what is happening at the vibrating lip, but just because it may look unconventional, does not mean it is not functional.