Stevens-Costello Embouchure

[TrumpetSkinny]

I recently embarked on an embouchure modification with the help of the Roy Stevens book. I've noticed a rapid increase to range and volume. However, I've had some other difficulties with tonguing, slurring, and overall flexibility. I can't seem to blow through fast bebop tunes like I am used to or play passages cleanly. What can I do to improve my flexibility and technique? Is there something with the embouchure that helps facilitate this?

[DizzyChrizzy01]

Use anchor tonguing. The tip of your tongue stays right behind your lower teeth and touches the teeth gently. The attack is produced by touching the roof of your mouth cave right behind the upper teeth with the upper side of your tongue. The contact point is about half an inch behind the tip of the tongue.

Use your tongue to speed up/compress/form the airstream. It is worth checking Jerry Callets TCE ideas to get more insight – even if you do not use TCE in a pure form. The general ideas are 100% worth checking. A quote from Jerry Callet, which I found in this forum, is also helpful for Stevens/Costello: “Make a fist with the muscles below your lower lip.

After some practicing you will regain flexibility. It is a simple movement, kind of “knack” you will find. It may come after minutes or a week. No muscle training is required, just to do the right movement. Once you found it, you got it.

You may however loose it again. That’s what happened to me last weekend. Really bad. I found it again yesterday within an hour of practicing – or more precisely described: when trying to discover the coordination again.

Christian

[Al Innella]

[NickD]

I stumbled across this in doing research for my Facebook business page (Drozdoff Music Productions) which is essentially my trumpeter's blog. I thought Roy Roman did a fine job in explaing how he did things. There are a lot of helpful clips here.

http://www.roystevens.org/?page_id=12

ND/&out
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[tathagata69]

Re: the Stevens Costello book. The Al Geller version of the book is non-copyrighted book that's overpriced.

The authorized book by Roy's original editor. close friend, and former local 802 President, Bill Moriarity, can be found at Amazon for more than half the price at $13.46

http://amzn.com/1469955911

The videos on www.roystevens.org will correspond as lesson plans to this version of the book.

[TrumpetSkinny]

Thanks for the tips. I've found through some experimentation that I was thinning my lips which contributed to a lack of flexility.

[ferrarosd]

[Tim McCarthy]

Does anyone use the "tongue controlled embouchre?" I have had success with it in warm ups and range exercises, but feel like it's hard to project in a big band setting

[tomba51]

[StupidBrassObsession]

[mcgovnor]

There is NO SUCH THING AS ANCHOR TONGUING.
In fact, the advice of one of the greatest proponents and teachers of the Clarke technique taught the tongue should never be rigid or anchored, but the tip and middle moving always, note to note..because it is the TONGUE, not the lip, that changes position from note to note. And do me a favor..save the rhetoric for Clarke and Claude Gordon, in the next life. Study, instead, and learn.
Secondly, Costello advised and taught, to use only the tip of the tongue in the classically taught way, behind the top teeth.
Having said that, the technique will work with either tongue position. In my experience, rolling the lip in, is not the foundation of the success ...rather, it is bringing the bottom lip up, and the jaw slightly forward, that serves to better balance the em brochure and help many with the higher register.

[dbacon]

DB

[rockford]

[herbievantetering]

Stevens Costello is not a useful system, it involves too much the adaptations of teeth etc. in order to get the 'flat' embouchure effect; it is more of a 'medical quakery' and 'marketing gimmick' than a useful method.

When trumpet methods get themselves involved in medical aspects and neuromuscular aspects, something must be wrong. The truth must be told about these approaches which only a handful of players can apply after major medical adaptations.

We're not talking about a method that works with a regular person with normal healthcare and a healthy class one.

The 'medical quackery' involved in making the diagram of the 'embouchure muscles' is the worse; it portrays the embouchure neuromuscular system as a 'perfectly centered' system which is also completely 'flat' and 'perfectly symmetric' so how are players supposed to learn on that?

You must have done some 'medical quackery' to reach the 'costello point' and it would be best to steer clear of such 'medical quackery' in trumpet method books.

Also, the tongueing method in Stevens Costello is completely wrong, the lip roll would (at most) get you a useless screamer and the medical diagram is full of viral advertisements, ..., another proof that the method involves 'medical quackery' beyond a healthy set of teeth (and at most some 'zahn schleifen') to improve the flow.

But hey, ..., the method is from NY and Hollywood, so I'd say buy the CD from these quacks now, ..., before it's too late.

[peanuts56]

[JayKosta]

For me, a BIG enlightenment that I got from reading (not studying with, or actually using the 'method') was the simple realization that it is critical for the aperture to be flexible and physically adjusted to operate at the desired pitch when a controlled air flow is blown into the instrument.

This is much different than the idea that the aperture is like a guitar string that depends on tightness, or being 'smashed into submission'.
_________________
Most Important Note ? - the next one !
KNOW (see) what the next note is BEFORE you have to play it.
PLAY the next note 'on time' and 'in rhythm'.
Oh ya, watch the conductor - they set what is 'on time'.

[kehaulani]

[Halflip]

[chase1973]

Many people think the Stevens system is for the benefit of upstream types only. Not true as both Don Ellis and Dave Sheetz are downstream types and studied w Roy Stevens for many years.

In the study which has you hold the trumpet with the palm of the hand and you "attempt" to play the "statics" as he called it, the "squeaker's" as it were, this has benefits for both downstream and upstream types, especially my fellow downstream types who tend to recede the lower jaw when playing. This exercise forces that lower jaw out, which takes pressure off of that top lip.

Only way to see if it works for you is to try it. If not, simply discard and move on.

[Doug Elliott]

Dave Sheetz is a Reinhardt guy... you sure he "studied w Roy Stevens for many years" ??

Maybe he did but I'm not aware of it.