Improve Your Tone on the Trumpet INSTANTLY | 3 Quick Fixes

First thing, there's three things. Beginners and inexperienced players, their oral cavity is really closed. So in order for us to get a better sound, just open it up. Our oral cavity is just anything inside the mouth, in here. So what I want you to do is say aw, as in like awesome, like aw. Close your lips, mm, mm. And also, you wanna open up the teeth. Because if we close the teeth, we're gonna get a certain sound that you might be familiar with. So I'm gonna demonstrate two things. I'm gonna demonstrate a oral cavity that's closed and the teeth are closed, and a sound that represents an open oral cavity and open teeth. So if you have your horn, and I recommend this, if you have your horn next to you, pop that thing out, get that horn out, and try it yourself. Right, so do you guys hear the difference, yes or no? Type in the chat if you hear the difference between a closed oral cavity, closed teeth, versus open oral cavity, open teeth. Quick fix number two is to eliminate all types of unnecessary tension in your playing, in your body. So there's four types of unnecessary tension in your body. Places where you do not want tension at all. If you have tension in these places, it's a total trumpet killer. The first one is a big one. It's a big, big tension, tension spot. And that's in the middle of your chops, the middle of your lips. What I've noticed in a lot of beginners is that with their lip buzz, it sounds like this. Ah! Right? So what's happening is you're tightening up both the corners and the middle of your lips. All right, so what you wanna do is eliminate the tension in the middle of your embouchure. In order to do that, to check, a quick way to check that is to just firm up the corners of your lips and just say your name. So I'm still able to talk to you normally, even though it looks weird, but my corners are firm, but this, the middle of my lips are loose. But if my lips are totally firm across the board, it's gonna sound like this. It's gonna sound like this. You can't understand what I'm saying, right? So that's a quick way to find out if you're really tense in the middle. Here's a trumpet sound that you might be familiar with, you might have heard before, if you're really tense in the middle. Here's a example of me loosening up the middle of my lips, only firm corners. You guys hear the difference? Yes and no in the chat if you guys hear a difference. The second spot is your shoulders. You don't want any tension in your shoulders because my shoulders are extra high like this. You can actually hear the change in my voice. Ah! The third spot is in your neck. Now you don't want to be really tight in the neck because if you are, you're gonna sound like you've been smoking 50 packs of cigarettes for like 30 years. So you wanna be really nice and relaxed in the throat so you don't sound like this. And if you sound like this, your trumpet sound, your trumpet sound is gonna sound like that, right? The fourth spot is in the chest. Eliminate unnecessary tension in these four places, the middle of your chops, your shoulders, your neck, and your chest. You wanna be really relaxed here. The last tip is to sit or stand in tune. Sit or stand in tune. You're asking me and you're scratching your hair, you're like, Aaron, what does that mean? What does that mean to sit or stand in tune? How do you sit and stand in tune? You wanna make sure that your body is balanced. You don't wanna stand or sit up really straight. And you also, you don't wanna slouch because that also changes your sound. You can even hear it in my voice. What I mean by standing or sitting in tune is just find a balanced posture and just allow your body to rest with your skeleton. So even your head, try to find the optimum space where your head just rests naturally and then play. If you stand or sit up really straight, how might that affect your intonation? Would it make it sharper or would it make it flat? If you slouch, just like chilling, you slouching and you play the trumpet, tell me how would that affect your intonation? Would it make it sharp, would it make it flat? But I want you to tell me, I'm not gonna give you the answer, but I want you to figure it out yourself and discover it. Discover how your posture affects your tone. So find that balanced position when you're sitting and when you're standing and play.