Horn Matters | A French Horn and Brass Site and Resource | John Ericson and Bruce Hembd

Over the summer an interview was posted with hornist Andrew Joy on high-c.com. Joy mentioned The Balanced Embouchure as a factor in his current embouchure approach. In the interview with Robert Douglass “Andrew Joy on Horn, Nerves, and Water Keys” the question begins with an embouchure change and what lead him to his present approach.

RD: You did something that is unthinkable to most established brass players – you completely changed your embouchure. Why did you do that? Was it hard to do? What advantages have you gained? Would you recommend it to others?

AJ: In January of 2006, after a four-week break from playing, I was getting back into shape when a blister developed in the middle of my bottom lip in the area that sits inside the mouthpiece. A tiny hole in the middle caused uncomfortable pain. I played for two and a half months with this handicap before choosing to take a break to allow the injury to heal.

During this time, I asked one of my trumpet colleagues about flexibility exercises that he could recommend that would help me with a performance of Stauss II at the then upcoming IHS Symposium in Cape Town. In addition to recommending the Schlossberg book, he also told me about Jerome Callet and the Tongue Controlled Embouchure (TCE). I bought Jerome’s books and DVDs and had a lesson with him on the phone, as well as one in person when he visited a friend in Düsseldorf in March of 2008. The most immediate and significant change for me was a 70%reduction of embouchure energy expenditure.

One year later, e-mail exchanges with Prof. John Ericson led me further to Jeff Smiley’s BE (The Balanced Embouchure) method. The increases in ease, range, endurance and flexibility that I am still experiencing almost two years later, have more than compensated for the hardships involved. I’m continually recommending both methods to other players. Using the BE exercises on a daily basis leads to a gentle change in and expansion of embouchure function. Most people notice a positive difference already after only two weeks of doing Smiley’s BE exercises on a daily basis.

I find it first very interesting that I was able to point Joy (an Australian player who is principal horn in a German orchestra–website here) to the Balanced Embouchure approach at a time when it was really helpful to him.

The Balanced Embouchure is a book with some very interesting content. I reviewed the book a while back and the note I would add to that is I think one of the things that BE concepts open up is an ability to achieve a greater range of motion in the embouchure. Some of the specific concepts will always be a bit controversial but there is a big picture he gets at, one element being that to play high and to play low you have to get out of your mid-range setting and another being you have to think outside the Farkas box at times.

For more notes on BE check The Balanced Embouchure for Horn and also The Balanced Embouchure website.

Among the articles here few have generated so much discussion as the the recent ones that addressed the topic of the embouchure break. It is topic that some horn teachers talk about a lot, but there is almost nothing online about it and little in print. Part of the reason why this is so is because breaking the embouchure is in general considered a bad thing in other brass instruments so hornists have stayed a bit underground on the topic.

I believe that most advanced horn players would agree changes are required in jaw position as you approach the lowest octave of the range of the horn. Thus in terms of horn I personally would define the embouchure break as any planned and distinct change of jaw position into the low range, ideally with no general change of placement. Some horn players and teachers advocate making this change gradually with no distinct break, and some advocate for a more distinct break or breaks, usually at or just below written C below the staff. I make use of both approaches in my teaching, it really depends on the student and the results obtained.

Still, I don’t think the above understanding of “the break” lines up with everyone out there and one could of course extend this discussion of a break to changes of general placement and more.

In any event, if you go to Google and type in the phrase “Embouchure Break” right now your number one hit is an article on the website of hornist Pip Eastop. It is actually an extended extract (with no additional commentary) from chapter 14 of The Cambridge Companion to Brass Instruments. The chapter by Ralph T. Dudgeon, Phillip Eastop, Trevor Herbert and John Wallace is titled “Playing, learning and teaching brass” and the selection in the Eastop site covers several topics but the main text there on the break  is as follows.

Ideally, a good embouchure should be able to produce any note at any dynamic. It should then be able to change to any other note without compromising its structure. And ideal embouchure has minimal visible movement. On instruments with larger mouthpieces, trombone and tuba especially, producing deeper notes requires the jaw to be lowered to vibrate at lower frequencies. This action also helps the lower register by increasing the resonating space inside the mouth. Jaw position and more obviously visible adjustments between registers are more evident on the larger brass. In general, however, the embouchure should allow the player to roam from high to low without pausing to re-seat in an embouchure ‘break’.

An embouchure break occurs when, for example, the beginner who has established a foothold in the middle register establishes another in the upper register, with a different embouchure seating, and perhaps yet another in the lower. And experienced teaching will guard against this, encouraging the gradual development of range by incremental degrees – perhaps a semitone at a time – to slowly build up strength and to ensure that the entire range is integrated under one well-formed embouchure. Most methods follow this incremental approach, building strength in the facial muscles through a cycle of play-rest-play-rest.

The text, while posted in a horn website, seems to me to be more directed to brass players in general. Certainly the break as potentially a positive thing for some players is not given a place in the spectrum of successful approaches to the low register of the horn.

My three recent articles Hornmasters on Mouthpiece Placement,  On Embouchure Changes, and Breaking the Embouchure generated so much discussion in fact that we felt the need to close discussion on all three. If you want to weigh in on the above text from the Cambridge Companion or on the embouchure break as it is understood in the horn world feel free to chime in below, this is your chance to open the discussion up again. Or, better still, for those commentators who have their own websites and blogs, please develop your thoughts out further in your sites as this is a topic that really needs to not be in the category of  topics on which there is very little to be found about online.