Embouchure and Posture (Part 2)
Wednesday, April 24, 2024 by Billy Roberts | French horn
Have you ever picked up your horn and started playing but found that your mid-register notes were stuffier than usual? That happened to me yesterday. At first I thought maybe the horn wasn’t in tune with itself. After adjusting some slides, the sound was freer, but the tuning was worse off. Clearly, that was not the right solution. I took a break, put some oil through the valves, picked up the horn and tried again. Everything worked fine. However, it was not because I had cleared excessive sludge from the rotors. That wasn’t the problem, although I did enjoy faster valve action.
In my rush to make the most of the twenty minutes or so I had with the horn, I did not pay attention to my posture as I sat down to play. My lower jaw tends to be set back because of the way I developed during adolescence. When I’m singing or playing the horn, I have to be conscious of letting it relax enough to come forward slightly. This is not a universal problem, but I’m sure most other players have their own unique thing to be aware of when setting their embouchure. I remember that when I first discovered this about myself, I thought I would benefit by using my neck and facial muscles to bring the jaw slightly forward. However, that approach proved detrimental to playing. I eventually discovered the neck and shoulder posture that worked for me to allow the jaw to naturally sit where it needs to be in order to form an efficient embouchure.
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve found that the warmup period for me is not so much about preparing my lips as it is making sure my head, neck and shoulders are aligned to foster efficient playing. To be sure, I still want to make sure my lips are loose before spending extensive time in the upper register, but I feel like it’s ok to go through all registers of the horn while warming up so long as the high notes are approached correctly. As I pondered that opening question, I noticed that the low register did not have the volume I was used to and my upper register had a thinner tone than usual. However, since the mid-register was the area most affected with stuffiness and intonation difficulties, that is where I chose to explore a bit to find out what was going on.
I pulled out my Warburton buzzard, which I’ve written about in a previous blog, buzzed a few notes in the mid-register, and had the problem sorted out in just a few seconds. That is a great benefit of working embouchure without the weight of the horn. When I picked up my horn, I made sure to use the same jaw setup, and that is where I figured out that my whole upper body posture was a little off. Last month, I wrote about the REMplenish bottle and how it has helped with my posture for singing. I’ve picked up many other tips over the past few years, but this proves that posture is still something that I need to think about first, no matter how rushed I am when sitting down to play.
One other thing worth mentioning as I close this blog is that horn playing works by putting a small stream of air through a small opening. The use of air is emphasized so much by brass teachers that some students may inadvertently open their mouths too wide, try to blow as much air through as possible, and then wonder why the horn does not respond to it. It is the quality of air that matters, not the quantity. Certainly you need good support, but that is to ensure that there is plenty of air behind the air that is actually going through your horn. It is possible to overblow a horn, just as you can overblow the voice when singing. However, as you play with a lip posture that allows you to keep a small aperture where the lips are neither bunched too tightly nor spread too thin, the danger of using too much air becomes unlikely simply because an efficient embouchure only responds well to the optimal flow of air.
