Trumpet scale and basic

MOUTH SHAPS / MAKING SOUND

The following outlines the first steps to attaining a good mouth shape for trumpet playing.

* Keep your teeth slighly apart. Your lips should be only lightly touching. Hold the lips as if about to say the 'M' in 'mother'.
* Blow to make your lips buzz.
* Now put the trumpet mouthpiece on your lips and make the same buzz into the center of the mouthpiece.
* To make a clear start to the sound you use your tongue. Start the next buzz with a 'T'. Do not put your tongue outside your lips - it stays inside your mouth.
* Now try putting the mouthpiece into the instrument and try the same thing- you should be able to produce a note.


Things to watch out for:

* Do not stick your lips out as if blowing a kiss!
* Do not puff your cheeks out when blowing
* Do try to breathe from your stomach - when you take a deep breath don't raise your shoulders.
* Do practise blowing long notes into your instrument and holding them. Learning to control your breath is crucial to good trumpet playing.

HIGH AND LOW SOUND:

Once you've practised the lip-buzzing we discussed in Lesson 1, we'll see here how it's possible to make higher and lower sounds by adjusting your lips.

* To make higher sounds, your lips must be tighter together when you blow the air through them. You will have to blow harder to make this happen.
* To make lower sounds, relax the lips and blow more softly.


Start by trying to make higher and lower sounds into the mouthpiece by itself. When you think you've got the hang of it, try it on the trumpet itself.

Up and down exercise

BREATHING CONTROL:

Learning how to control your breath is crucial to good trumpet playing. Here we'll take you through some of the basic dos and donts.

Breathing in

When you breath in, the air should fill the lower reaches of the lungs first. You should be able to feel your abdomin swelling up as you breath in. Most importantly - do not let your shoulders rise as you breath.

Breathing out

The main thing to learn about breathing out is being able to control the speed at which the air is exhaled.

To play a long note at a consistent volume, you need to exhale at a consistent level. All loudness and softness on the trumpet is controlled by the speed of the air.

Exercise playing long notes

* Play long notes with full breaths. Do not strain at the end, but remain relaxed.
* When the note has finished, inhale fully and play the same note again.
* Once you have practised this a few times repeat the exercise starting very soft and increasing in volume to the end of the note. Try to time the increase so that you don't arrive too soon at the loud note.