Explaining Superchops Series E04 - Air Power and Chop Resistance

[@peteestabrook346]

Thanks again for taking the time to go over the surface contradictions present in the text. I like the ideas of compression resistance and friction and think they are useful as well as efficiency.

[@surrealreviews]

Hello again! I have another mouthpiece question. I have been researching mouthpieces a lot and I have also been listening to your videos. I now realize how absurd wanting a gigantic mouthpiece was considering my situation. I also am focusing on improving myself as a musician with my standard mouthpieces (3C and 7C) and not just getting a fancy new mouthpiece. That being said, I will be a lead trumpet in my marching band this year and I would like to expand past my off-brand 3C, 7C, and my Sevrensen Jet-Tone. My 3C has the standard 27 throat but my 7C has a throat that is ever so slightly larger (I figured this out by checking them with a 27 drill bit). The inconsistency is likely due to them being knock offs of Bach mouthpieces. But I prefer the slightly expanded throat of the 7C. My only complaint with the 7C is the cup is just too deep. I talked to my section leader who has spent upwards of $500 on different mouthpieces and is very knowledgeable on the topic. He recommended a Bach 7D. I want a mouthpiece that helps with the upper register but still maintains a nice dark tone. I am torn between 3 different mouthpieces and I would like to get your opinion. I could get a Bach 7D with a 24 throat. Another option is a Bach 7D Megatone. The third choice is a Denis Wick 3C Heavytop. I added this one because I heard good things about it and it’s $80 vs. $120 for a megatone. Anything more than $60 is already a lot for a mouthpiece (for me) so I don’t want to spend $120 if $80 can get me something the same or better. Sorry for the gigantic comment but I hope you can give some general insights like you did last time (and your last response was extremely helpful). Thank you!

[@BrassPractice]

Hello again! Thanks for checking back in, you’ve raised some interesting questions here that I think I can help with. Believe it or not I was hoping to make a video a few weeks ago that covers a lot of what I’m about to write here. Unfortunately I’ve just been very busy and the KZbin videos are usually the first thing to suffer in that case. Also, I’m writing this on my phone so you may have to excuse typos and bad edits!! Firstly I just want to mention, to add some information and thoughts into the mix, that I wouldn’t consider a 7D to be either a small or shallow mouthpiece. That doesn’t make it objectively bad or good, but it’s worth recognising that sometimes aiming for something medium can result in you sacrificing both tone and stamina (I’m going to say stamina and not range here because your range shouldn’t change significantly when you change mouthpiece unless you’re using the mouthpiece to physically force the lips into doing something that you cannot do with another mouthpiece!). Needlessly simple maths like the following may help to illustrate the point: if a large mouthpiece has a cup diameter of 0.680” and a small one has a diameter of 0.600” then the 7D is right in the middle with its cup diameter of 0.640”. Anyway… the diameter may not be the most important factor, as it’s the cup volume (affected by diameter, depth and shape) that will affect all of this the most - I was just making a point. If I were looking at cheaper off-the-shelf pieces for lead playing then I’d be mentioning something like a Yamaha 13A4a, which is both in your price range and designed for the sort of playing we’re talking about. I’ve found a lot of low-priced Warburton mouthpieces on eBay over the years. Look at something with an S or SV cup for lead playing. Personally I wouldn’t use a diameter bigger than a Warburton 7 (which is 0.63”). Ok, so now to some more important things… You said that you’re playing in a marching band. What you should consider is: 1) You are playing outside and moving about. That movement, and environmental factors such as wind, will dramatically alter everybody’s perception of sound. 2) Your audience will probably be about 300ft away or more. Try to imagine this from the audience’s perspective… imagine a situation where you sit in the bleachers and someone on the field plays a loud melody at you on 3 different mouthpieces. Can you honestly tell the difference in tone? 3) Your individual tone will not stand out from the ensemble unless it is brilliant and focused. Do you want it to stand out, as a lead player? Yes. In terms of the sound vs range issue you just need to realise that tone and pitch are intrinsically connected. There is no such thing as having a dark sound whilst playing high pitched notes. Think about how this would be - playing above high C on a flugel horn… what you hear is a diffuse sound with no resonance or carrying power. Here’s another example - piccolo trumpet, the notes are high and the tone is…? Not dark or spread. When you think about what sound is, and how the trumpet tone is just a composite of fundamental pitch and overtones (over-tones meaning higher-tones) then you realise that what I’m saying here must be true. “Dark sound” means one of two things: 1) lacking in overtones, which could also be described as dull; or 2) low in pitch. I hope this helps and doesn’t come across as a mad rant. When I put the video together I’ll try to explain it better. Personally I think you should keep the 3C for legit playing and use something like the 13A4a for lead/marching. They are quite different mouthpieces and this will cause you to have to learn to approach using them differently.

[@surrealreviews]

@@BrassPractice Thank you so much! That is all extremely helpful!

[@surrealreviews]

@@BrassPractice Actually I do have one more question. I looked at the 13a4a in Venncad and I can see why you recommended it. When comparing it to a 3C and 7C it looks like exactly what I was going for when I wanted a new mouthpiece! But is getting the throat enlarged to a 25 or 24 a good idea? (The website I want to buy it from allows you to do that for $25) Are larger throats better or worse for projection/marching band? From my admittedly little research it seems like there are a many benefits but I’ve also heard the horror stories of getting too large of a throat. I just wanted to see your opinion on that.

[@BrassPractice]

I think the question of throat is a little more personal. It tends to be about balancing the player, mouthpiece and trumpet so what feels good for you might be awful for someone else. When I got into TCE I followed Callet’s advice that there’s never a reason to go above the standard 27, but since learning more I’ve come to embrace some different options. I think that for me the bigger throats work with larger cups or MF-style v-cups. It does tend to be orchestral players who prefer that feel. Even so, for a trumpet I wouldn’t go bigger than 25 or smaller than 29. People will tell you that you may want a bigger throat so that you can get more air through the trumpet. This is pretty old-fashioned thinking as we know that the sound is made by vibrations travelling along the air column, not the displacement of the air itself. If you reduce the resistance of the blow by opening the throat it can take a small percentage more physical effort to initiate sound, which will make the horn feel stuffy - quite counter-intuitive! One other thing - when you put a straight drill through a mouthpiece you actually lengthen the cylindrical section of the throat/backbore. Usually this isn’t a bad thing but the more you open it, the more change you’re doing to this balance, which can adversely affect tuning. You should be alright, but just don’t go too extreme. Personally I think throats as big as those used by Monette and AR Resonance are too big to be practical for most people. This is why they end up shortening the backbore - to fix the tuning problems caused by the large throat.

[@surrealreviews]

@@BrassPractice Thank you! That’s the exact type of explanation I needed. The “make the horn feel stuffy” part was especially intriguing as I didn’t consider that. If I do enlarge my throat I’ll make sure to not go past a 25. Thanks again for all of your help!

[@mariecullentrumpet.105]

Great videos Rich. Thanks for sharing all this information. Are the lips rolled in against the top front teeth with the tongue anchored to the bottom lip. Still trying to understand this concept. Very interesting. Kind regards Marie 🎺

[@BrassPractice]

Hi Marie, No, this book was written a few years before Jerry started teaching the anchored tongue position. At that time he taught that you should strike the tongue with the lips but it should then lie flat in the mouth after the attack. Quite a lot of people struggled with that, especially in the high register… In my mind the lip grip changed from being against the teeth to against the tongue as the system moved closer to what we call TCE today. Just to throw a spanner in the works, Jerry was already teaching the spit buzz at the time this book came out… the demo he does of that on the video barely looks different from the spit buzz of many years later.

[@mariecullentrumpet.105]

@@BrassPractice Thanks for your prompt reply Rich. Much appreciated. Just one more question. Is the movement of the lips the same in TCE but not as far up on the top teeth🤔 I’m a little confused as I’ve been watching the “first notes of the day” guy on KZbin.

[@BrassPractice]

I’m one of the lessons I had with Jerry in 2015 he said to me “your bottom lip is your control, range and stamina”. To me this shows that he definitely did still think in this way. If you check out the face cross-section picture distributed with the Master Superchops DVD it shows the lips gripping inwards against the tongue, which, to me at least, is the same thing (like you said!). Unfortunately there have been a number of times when the “first notes” guy has demonstrated that he doesn’t have a clear grasp of the timeline of changing ideas, despite being one of the few people that lived through it. IMHO his attempts to over-simplify the concepts have lead to a system that most people struggle to understand. When he talks of pushing the tongue into the bottom lip the effect is that the circular muscle around the lip tenses in response. This response is the same as using the lips to grip the tongue but observed from the other side… which came first, the chicken or the egg?

[@mariecullentrumpet.105]

@@BrassPractice Thanks again Rich. I love your passion in this regard. Your videos are fantastic and very inspiring. Keep them coming xx

[@kennysalves]

Could you give us some examples of greats trumpet players that use TCE?

[@BrassPractice]

Hello. I have talked about this topic at length in two previous videos. I would suggest you begin your research by watching those. 🙂