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Greeting to the Group,

I am a rank amateur interested in what ya’ll think about how far the jaw should move when traveling up and down the octaves. For example, my jaw is pretty open when playing the 2nd F below the staff, but much more closed when playing the D above the staff. Now that is an extreme (and neither of those notes sound that great anyway from me) but sort of demonstrates my question. What really brought this out is when I try to play some etudes with notes alternating between middle staff range and a couple of notes below the staff range. At slower speeds, no problem, but as I speed it up, it seems my jaw doesn’t move fast enough. Should my jaw be moving at all in this situation? Should my jaw look like one of those wind-up teeth that chatter away? What do the real musicians with talent do?

Thanks,

Stu

Rather than focus on your jaw, I think you might want to pay more attention to your tongue. You have an amazing number of brain cells, nerves and musculature dedicated to working it. And how you sound is directly related to the shape of the air tube inside your head. The jaw is outside all that, readily visible to the observer, but relatively "dumb." Remember the old tv show, Lancelot Link? The chimps move their jaws around sort of like they're talking, but that doesn't come near to actually getting the words out! Your jaw can influence the sound, sure; but it should move because the brain tells it to in order to manipulate the airstream - and that is largely controlled by the tongue. Keep working and have fun with it!

My suggestion would be, that rather than focus on the jaw moving up and down, you may wish to put your efforts more into movement in and out, and the relational movement of the airstream through the lips up and down.

Agreed - airflow is hugely important. That's where the energy is. And it is what the tongue focuses.

I would add two words: Bernoulli Principle.

In other words, if you have your jaw scrunched up, it may affect the velocity of the air support, causing everything to go sharp. Think "oh" on the low notes and "ah" on the higher notes as you play, and that can help your oral cavity regulate the proper velocity of the air support.

According to myself and many, jaw motion up and down is used for vibrato, not range.

Thank you very much everyone who has offered advice and wisdom. The range of answers has given me something to tinker with. I have seen real musicians opening and closing their jaws a significant amount when warming up with octaves (not vibrato). I don't know if they were just exaggerating as part of an exercise of what. As I go up the octaves I direct the airflow more inferiorly and rotate the lower lip more posteriorly such that the airflow goes over the more anterior (thicker) part of the lip, and close the jaws to provide more support to the tightening lip. I then reverse this course for going down the octaves. When I last took a lesson (35 years ago), I remember my teacher telling me to limit my jaw motion, as I recall. Perhaps a more specific question could focus any more answers. How much does your jaw move when playing an F two octaves below the staff to the D above the staff? If you were to play these two notes alternatingly at relative quick tempo, would your jaw move then? Is the goal to move the jaw as little as possible, or let it move as it wants? Thanks again for your input.

Stu

shifts for the different ranges do occur, and more for some people than others. The key to lesson the effect of having to shift between the "sets" is to have overlap. lets just say for arguments sake that you notice a embouchure shift at or around the F below the staff. Well in music that requires you too frequently and quickly jump back and forth over that shift, it would benefit you to be avoid that shift. You do that by developing an overlapping of range with the two sets. Be able to play a forth above the break point with the lower set and a forth below the break point with the higher set. The better you are at overlapping the range of the sets, the better you will become at moving between them and the amount of movement needed to effect the shift will lessen.

Overall jaw movement should be subtle and understated. The better you get as a player the less noticeable it will be

Shifts should not occur in an embouchure according to my best teachers. I admit that it is mighty tempting to take in more lower lip when operating in the difficult range just above the open pedal on euph and on bassbone and sadly also on contrabass tuba, but not really on bass tuba.

What does my lower jaw do during multi octave smooth glisses on the mouthpiece alone, and on better days also on the low brasses? It combines the wisdom from the bloke and the bug, even if it did so long before learning about the existence of these fine players.

You may sniff, but my brass playing first took off for real, when I transferred the usage of inner resonances (head and torso) that I had been taught in singing and in playing the recorder.

Wisdom, or the surrogate for it, acquired over a lifetime tells me that resonance may be a less precise term. It is more about a full relaxation of all surfaces of the inner airpath with the purpose of avoiding inner turbulences. And then like Joan Sutherland told: working with the direction of the air. That great soprano had pointing references for every note in her register. That must be mighty hard to manage. The European continental tradition is about thinking in vowels, which is easier. I am fortunate to have a mother tongue utilizing more vowels than known in English.

Klaus Smedegaard Bjerre

As a grad student at Eastman and working with Cherry Beauregard, we did a lot of flexibility exercises and lip slurs and we worked on vertical jaw movement. Later, out at Indiana, and studying with Harvey, he did the same. He worked with me a lot on the Interval Studies in the Arban book and the vertical jaw motion. I don't know how one can pop out those intervals at a med. - fast tempo (or slow tempo) without moving the jaw. Today, I teach the same methods with my students.

Let's also look at jaw movement as it equates to dynamics. This is somewhat relevant to the discussion.

If you were to start a note at PP and crescendo to FF without opening the jaw, it would push the pitch quite a bit sharp. The opening of the jaw helps to keep the pitch down as the dynamic increases. In the diminuendo, the reverse would happen. Try this with a tuner and you can see just how much change in the jaw position is required during the dynamic change to maintain a steady pitch center.

This is another aspect of the practice routine that many players have to develop - not only do we need to control air flow and speed, but oral cavity shape v/s dynamic. Bloke has challenged people in the past to play scales from the bottom of the horn to the top in crescendo and diminuendo and maintain a less that 5 cents swing in the pitch in the process on each note. Try it - it's hard, but can be learned. This is an important part of your training as a player.

Just my observations.
Roger

Thanks again to all who have lent their expertise and wisdom.

Stu