Air Pockets

[TheChiefofStaph]

A bizarre thing has been happening to me in the practice room for the past few days. Towards the end of my daily warm-up routine on some tonguing exercises that aren't particularly high or low (from F2-F3 or thereabouts), air keeps escaping from the seal around my mouthpiece and going into other parts of my mouth (i.e., under my bottom lip, tops of my cheeks, strange places like that). It makes it nearly impossible to play. It only occurs after I get through most of my warm-up, generally during the same few exercises.

The first time I thought it may have just been too much stress on the muscles so I put the horn down, took a break for about 2 hours and then came back to it and started working on some different exercises. For the first 30 seconds or so I was OK, and then this problem recurred.

Yesterday was the second day that I encountered this problem, so I followed the same steps but this time as soon as I returned to my horn the problem recurred.

Today, it happened once again. Same set of exercises, about 30-35 minutes into my warm-up and I am now at a loss. Has this happened to anyone else? Are there any suggestions on how to fix this problem?

Thanks,
Ben