buzzing on the mouthpiece...NO one agrees with me, EXCEPT...

[bisontuba]

I think the 'fruit salad' of life long buzzing has produced enough responses...

[Rick Denney]

Well, I like how you sound. But I also like how my teacher sounded. That's why I'm sure this issue isn't central to making a good sound. As with most teaching techniques, when used a appropriately they can produce good effects, and when used inappropriately they can do damage. You say that no one agrees with you except the guy in the video, but to use your own sound as the basis for validating that agreement, those who disagree (which, by your statement, is everyone except that guy) must not produce a good sound. Now, I don't really think you mean that.

Rick "recalling when you used to complain that nobody would challenge you on this forum" Denney

[tubapix]

My community band director demonstrated (insert smart commercial remark here) for us a Warburton "P.E.T.E.". Interesting device if you want to exercise your embouchure. I personally don't buzz or use this device but some may like it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL18iG-XuZ4" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank

[sirtar]

I have found this interesting. The thought that buzzing is such a hot issue. As all have pointed out so clearly, the need to create a vibration is paramount. The mouthpiece is an amplifier of that vibration. As I have told my students, blowing air into a mouthpiece creates what? A whooshing sound. Or as I tell my students, that toilet sound when they push the lever.

My first teacher was Earl Hoffman, he stressed buzzing to create the richest sound you can make. He would always tell me that between playing and travel. The only thing he could do was buzz on the mouthpiece. My second teacher was Michael Sanders, again buzzing the mouthpiece was important.

As A band director and influenced by these gentleman all of my brass students buzzed at the start of rehearsal. I did this for 34 years in the school system. Now that I have retired and travel from one school to another for lessons (retired?) and play my horn (which is so enjoyable) all I have time to practice is to buzz on the mouthpiece.

Clearly, something has to happen in the mouthpiece to create the sound. We can agree on that. So here is the discussion and let's drink beer. I get bifurcation in the most entertaining ways.

[Levaix]

The instructor that had the most impact on me placed quite a lot of weight on mouthpiece buzzing, even to the point of making us buzz sections with the mouthpiece hooked up to one of those medical devices that measures airflow. You played the passage on the horn, he would say "that sucked, take the mouthpiece off," you would play it on the mouthpiece/airflow meter while he yelled "more air!" and then you put the mouthpiece back on the horn. And every single flippin' time you sounded twice as good afterwards. In the same vein I know several people who have drastically improved after taking up buzzing every day.

bloke, in the past you've weighed in very heavily of the importance of embouchure over airflow, and I strongly suspect your difference of philosophy on these subjects is directly related. If you're relying on the tuba for backpressure then obviously buzzing on a mouthpiece alone is going to be a fruitless experience. Now, I've never heard you play, so I'm not going to make any judgment as to whether your approach is "wrong" or just different.

BTW, I've been enjoying the Imperial that came in this week. It's a good thing your mouthpieces work just as good for us "airflow" guys.

[Levaix]

Damn, sounds like we had the same teacher.

My problem with the Christian Lindberg example is he's not trying to make a good sounding buzz. (probably intentionally so) A bad buzz will make a bad sound.

It's perhaps even more likely that our teachers had the same teacher. That being said, everybody claims THAT guy as their teacher.

[Leland]

Rick told me there was a huge thread on buzzing while he watched me warm up by buzzing. Jeez, guys, fifteen pages? I'll read more later. But, for now, this...

The instructor that had the most impact on me placed quite a lot of weight on mouthpiece buzzing, even to the point of making us buzz sections with the mouthpiece hooked up to one of those medical devices that measures airflow. You played the passage on the horn, he would say "that sucked, take the mouthpiece off," you would play it on the mouthpiece/airflow meter while he yelled "more air!" and then you put the mouthpiece back on the horn. And every single flippin' time you sounded twice as good afterwards. In the same vein I know several people who have drastically improved after taking up buzzing every day.

I used several tricks with my sections, although we didn't have a device for measuring airflow.

Say they played a lick and it sucked. Here's how I deconstructed it --
1. Timing off? Work with no buzzing, just air and buttons. Get the articulations in time. I think this keeps the players from worrying about waiting for the horn to make a sound, and it also lets them hear the metronome better. And, it's a practice habit they can use while other sections are being worked or during visual rehearsal on the field (airflow is much different while playing than while singing, right?). For the instructor, variations in the wind stream are easier to hear, and bad habits like releasing with the tongue really stand out.

2. Pitch unstable or fracking? Buzz. Often with just the mouthpiece, sometimes with a BERP or with a fingertip providing a little resistance. The horn has no real backpressure -- at least, it shouldn't -- but it has resonance... but, adding some resistance to, I guess, simulate resonance can help.

3. No projection? Hold open some spit valves and play, or maybe pull a tuning slide out of the horn instead. This removes all sense of "center", and yes, it affects how different pitches resonate. Depending on the layout of the horn, though, it retains the leadpipe and uses its characteristics (unlike buzzing on the mouthpiece alone), and it makes it obvious to the player when and where they're hitting the pitches off-center. When they could finally play on open spit valves with good phrasing, stable long notes, and accurate quick notes, I'd have them close the spit valves -- and every single time, it's like they gained a month's worth of practice in about ten minutes.

[Leland]

Keeping in mind what I posted above ^^^^^

CUT TO 6:03 in the video, or this post makes no sense at all:
========================================
I *completely* agree with this man, but (having little "cred") *always* am shouted down on internet discussion lists.

CUT TO 6:03 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D796wn5uvtw

I also agree that buzzing on the mouthpiece is a lot different than buzzing on the horn.

I fully subscribe to "garbage in, garbage out" and "the horn just makes my mistakes louder", too.

Buzzing an ideal, clear, no-fuzz buzz on the mouthpiece, like Mr. Lindbergh demonstrated, is certainly the wrong kind of buzz for sounding good on the horn. As Rick could likely attest, I don't try for the same kind of buzz when I'm doing it myself. When I'm warming up in the car or using a BERP on the field, I'm allowing for plenty of fuzz, and I'm trying to just keep the pitch and wind stable. Hearing the pitch waver is easy enough -- it's just a note. Hearing the air go out of whack means listening for the "fffssssfssssss" of the buzz's fuzz and trying to make it stay consistent.

[Leland]

By the way, when doing "air and fingers" as I call it, I have them do it away from the mouthpiece for clarity. It's also an exercise they can do away from the horn by doing "thumb fingering" (but not as effective without the click of the valve)

Yup. I've had them do it on the horn, off the horn, -- pretty much wherever. I do it myself when I'm just walking around.

I alluded to "on the field", too. When we're doing marching rehearsals and not playing, I get the guys to air & valve their parts. Singing might be needed early on to remember where we are in the music, but everything about the air is different. They have to learn how to phrase and support the sound -- and doing everything in time -- while running around the field. Taking the buzz away gets them 90% there without having to blast their chops over a four-hour rehearsal block.

[k001k47]

I only read a few pages, but I just wanted to throw in my half a cent. (My info is worth less . . . And worthless)

I think buzzing on a mouthpiece is halfway decent for building mouth muscles and making fart sounds without training wheels (guitar with no frets etc) . . . A lot of the band directors I've observed start beginner kids with embouchure form and mouthpiece buzzing.

I THINK the reason buzzing FEELS different is because when buzzing into a tuba, the goal is to make a column of air vibrate, and a column of x feet resonates best at x pitch (to put it in acoustic terms dumbed down to my level of understanding), and our lips perceive this as "slotting". The absence of "slots" and "backpressure" (my term for the pressure explained by Rick) is why I think buzzing off the horn feels completely different. The Christian buzzing example translates well when pulling the mouthpiece out of the horn while buzzing a low pitch or false tones.

To be completely honest, I've been a big buzzing advocate because Jacobs and most of my mentors advocate it, but the video in bloke's OP makes me really ponder the effectiveness of it. I guess buzzing off the horn encourages flowing more wind and a looser set of chops, which is usually a good thing playing low tuba ****, but not so well on pea shooter tbones or trumpets. . . Or anything that isn't a tuba.

My last teacher suggested using a length of plastic tubing, and this mimics the "backpressure" feeling of a tuba. That always stuck with me when doing buzz work.

[barry grrr-ero]

Joe,

I've taken this whole topic to heart and have greatly curtailed my buzzing routine. As a result, yes, I get a good sound quicker on the tuba when I don't buzz. That said, however, some m.p. buzzing in the car is still better than no warm-up or practicing at all! Imagine running a long marathon with no stretching or warm-up.

When I studied with Floyd Cooley - WAY back in 'the day' - he did have us do m.p. buzzing for pitch placement purposes. I do think that's helpful. I also find it useful in getting across breaks more smoothly, such as the open "C" to the first valve "D" on a C tuba. But that's in combination with going back (and forth) to the tuba.

Just as a counterpoint to this no buzzing quorum, you might take a look at what trumpeter James Stamp developed as a routine when he was stuck in a hospital and couldn't play. However, when I took a lesson with James Stamp, he made it clear that a player shouldn't work on warm-ups all day long either. For him, it was a means to an end and NOT an end itself. James Stamp was a practical man. I wish I could have stayed in L.A. and studied with him longer (along with Tommy).

[k001k47]

I just remembered a cool practice tool Arturo Sandoval's name is attached to. Maybe a tuba version of it would be good for buzzing or off the horn practice

http://www.sandovalves.com/" target="_blank

[barry grrr-ero]

Joe, I completely agree with your point of adding some resistance to the m.p. when buzzing. I use a Berp Classic 'thingee' that Mario Guarneri came up with. You guys have seen these, I'm sure. Regardless, I do this much less now than I used to.

http://www.berp.com/product/classic-berp/" target="_blank

[MikeMilnarik]

Doesn't matter what an individual's philosophy is, all that matters is what comes out of the bell. If it sounds great, you are doing what's right for you.

Mike Milnarik

[Donn]

If others' lips beat against each other percussively (unlike what happens with a contrabassoon reed, which minimally requires finger strength to force the blades to touch - and resulting in a p!$$ed off contrabassoonist), that's fine, but that's not what's happening here.

• I bet a quarter contrabassoon reeds do touch, or "beat", at reasonable volume. (It has been my impression that bassoon reeds do, and there shouldn't be much difference acoustically.)
• But not "percussively", if that implies that the tone is generated by the impact. It isn't. Bassoon reeds always (or usually anyway) beat, saxophone reeds beat under some playing conditions and not others. Sound is generated either way, by the movement of the reed. When the reeds beat, their movement is interrupted or interfered with, and that changes the quality of the tone. The tone is generated by the oscillation of the reed, whether it ever hits anything or not.

[Donn]

I'm fully aware that you believe those things, Donn.

References cited on pages 7 and 8.

It seems to me that after 10 pages - unless I forgot some part of this ancient discussion, which is entirely possible - you all are missing the interesting question in connection with lips touching/not touching. Is that "does buzzing work"? Nope! Everyone agrees, "buzzing" feels different and is different from normal playing, am I right? Buzzing is what it is, a different thing that seems to work for what it works for, entirely irrespective of how similar it isn't to normal playing.

But what does happen, when the lips touch? Lips striking each other aren't going to make any sound at all, directly, but that must affect the air stream pulse a little, right? Supposing you really can play non-striking - but no doubt you can also play striking. Is the different noticeable? What does it sound like? Should a player be able to do both?

[Doug Elliott]

It occurred to me that I could make a movie, watch it in super-slow motion (with a friend's equipment), and watch for the lips to close.
They vibrated, but never "met". The entire video looks like this still shot (below) with an arched opening remaining between the lips.

How many frames per second was the video?

The slow motion films that Lloyd Leno made back in about 1975 were done at 30,000 frames per second, at which point you can clearly see the full opening and closing motion of the embouchure, not just a photographic average of the aperture.

Vocal cords have a lot of similarities to an embouchure.
From 1965, a high speed film of vocal cords vibrating: https://youtu.be/QBV0DED7RYA?t=569" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank
Modern videos of vocal cords showing how they "close" but don't quite touch for their entire length, because they're in a V shape:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2okeYVclQo" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank
https://youtu.be/P2pLJfWUjc8?t=215" target="_blank" target="_blank" target="_blank
There are many more videos like this.

Oh, and here's my favorite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XGds2GAvGQ" target="_blank

[Rick Denney]

Not intending to re-enter the lips-touching debate, which I think solves itself if people play for sound, I nevertheless want to describe resistance more carefully.

If we just blow into the instrument without a buzz, we feel simple resistance. There is some, and much of that comes from the throat of the mouthpiece.

But that is not what most people mean when they use the term "resistance". In electronics, impedance is resistance at a particular frequency, and that is the resistance that people are missing when they buzz a mouthpiece. In the frequency domain, where musical notes reside, we really should think about resistance in terms of impedance. Leland got a start on this with his word "resonance", which is the inverse of impedance, and resonance peaks when impedance is near zero. But zero impedance is also bad, because it would require so much airflow that we would be unable to sustain the note. In a resonant bugle, the only frequencies that resonate are harmonics of the fundamental frequency of the bugle. Other frequencies have high impedance (as opposed to mere resistance) and are attenuated. The reason the impedance is high is because the pulse bouncing back from the bell cancels out a pulse coming at the wrong time (because it is at the wrong frequency). That's why buzzing off-pitch undermines the sound--it kills importance harmonic resonance even if we are forceful enough to sustain the buzz.

In electrical circuits, we can put a capacitor and an inductor in parallel, and create a resonance circuit. A capacitor filters out simple current flow (aka, direct current or DC), but allows current to flow when it is pulsed. An inductor allows simple current flow, but won't pass current flowing at certain frequencies. An inductor is just a coil of wire, and the changing magnetic field caused by pulsations of current in the coil cancel out those frequencies that the inductor won't pass. The capacitor and inductor resonate when the capacitor allows the frequency that the inductor passes, which then sends the right frequency back to the capacitor, which allows more of it, which the inductor passes, which sends more back to the capacitor, and so on until the power source can no longer supply sufficient power, or something breaks. Oscillations of this sort can fry an electronic circuit by passing more current than the parts can withstand. So, one puts a resistor in the circuit to control current flow and keep the circuit from resonating too freely, and in that role, the resistor has a damping effect.

With the tuba, the bugle acts as the inductor, passing certain frequencies and damping others. The embouchure is the capacitor and also part of the power source (which includes the lungs), releasing pulses at a desire frequency and inhibiting others. When the two resonate, the frequency the lips pass matches the resonance of the instrument, and it becomes a self-reinforcing oscillation. Just as with the electrical circuit, it is limited by current flow, or air flow. Some of that limitation comes from us (we moderate the amount of air we feed the note to control the amplitude--loudness--of vibration), and some of it comes from simple resistance in the instrument, which is the same resistance we feel when we blow through the instrument without a buzz. The added simple resistance is what keeps the air column from continuing to vibrate after we stop buzzing.

When we buzz a mouthpiece, we are powering the capacitor without the inductor, and we have to supply frequency control using other means than the resonance of the instrument. The ability to control the pitch of the buzz without depending on the resonance of the instrument seems to me important in two ways. One, it allows us to play in tune, given that the instrument has a lot of simple resistance which lowers the sharpness of the resonance--we call that having wide slots.

The other is when we are changing frequencies. If we depend too much on the resonance of the bugle to sustain the buzz, we will not develop the ability to force a buzz at a different frequency to establish a new resonance. This is especially true when changing from one partial to the next (with valves, as with going from C to D on a C tuba, or without valves, as when changing from Bb to D on a Bb tuba, on the staff in both cases).

We manage that problem in two ways. One, we do flexibility exercises to strengthen and train our embouchure muscles so they can force an exact new frequency. The other is that we find ways to let the valves help us. I once played a part that had a 16th-note back-and-forth between C and the Eb above it on the staff. Playing it on first valve only (on my Bb tuba) meant that I was crossing from one partial to the next on embouchure strength alone. I could play it more cleanly when playing the C on fourth valve. The changing valves opened a (very) temporary hole in the resonance (the tuba is far less resonant with valves at half-mast), and that helped. But also, the fourth-valve C and first-valve Eb are in the same partial.

So, I think buzzing helps in a couple of ways. It helps identify weak airflow--it takes a lot of current to sustain the buzz without the instrument reinforcing the resonance. And it teaches us to control pitch, especially when pitch is changing. But there is a negative side to it--we have to make our chops act as both capacitor, which is its normal role, and inductor, which is normally the tuba's job.

I may have written this before in this thread, but perhaps not in so much detail.

Rick "who would never bring a razor blade close to vibrating lips" Denney

[MikeMason]

I think the concept of " sending in" the pitch you want the tuba to play can be very valuable and can be demonstrated by buzzing. Puts the responsibility for accuracy and clarity squarely on the player.

[Donn]

I would assume that anyone - using a guitar pick, etc. - could replicate what I did and show themselves that the lips are vibrating independently of each other.

Would anyone who has been following this care to explain, why the razor or whatever would have interrupted the sound? I as yet do not understand what that experiment proved or disproved.