How do you quickly improve endurance and range on the trumpet?

Question

I've been playing trumpet about 7 years now, and currently I've been struggling to play.

Right now I'm playing with a 1-1/2 C Bach mouthpiece, and it seems to take more effort than it did in the past to play anything above the staff.

Also, whenever I practice for more than about 15 minutes, my lips kind of die, my range suffers, and I sometimes even shake. I've done this for about 3 consecutive days or so, and I get little bumps on the insides of my lips.

Answer 1

It is all about maintaining a high speed of air velocity through your horn while keeping your lips vibrating. Contrary to the popular myth, screaming has NOTHING to do with changing embrochures. In fact good trumpet players practice their entire range trying to maintain only one embrochures so that they can learn to jump from one note to another quickly, without cracking it. It takes years of practice to learn to go from a low G (under the staff) to a high G (above the staff).

TO PLAY HIGH NOTES, the number one thing that you should make sure that you do every time is to have solid breath support. Make sure that your air supply is coming from your gut and not from your throat or chest. In fact this goes for any note you play. If you skip out on this, your high note will not last more 5 seconds and it will sound like a goat more than a brass instrument and it will feel like your neck is going to explode.

The second thing you should do is open your throat so that you can let the maximum amount of warm air flow from your gut (I know, i know lungs, but people think of chest when i say that) through your lips and out the horn.

I would be lying to you if I said that "you should never tighten your lips to play high notes". The old trumpet crooner guy tells you this because they realize that jamming the mouthpiece into your teeth and tightening the lips does give you a high note. But doing it this way does two things: it will kill your ability to play anything else after your high note and secondly can "blow out your chops"-- which means significant tissue damage that can put you out of playing anything for a few days up to a few week, not to mention that its like having a brain aneurysm. THE FACT IS: to play any note on the trumpet you MUST have SOME tension, because without any lip tension, you would never be able to produce a vibration. However, like any good person should do, you must learn to produce the best sound with littlest effort. Meaning, you must learn to be efficient.

As far as excersizes, my trumpet professor gave me something called the expanding scales that has helped me be very consistent with my range. Consistency is most important when practicing high notes and for endurance, because that is where you know your limit is. You start with the root note (very low G) go to 2, back to 1, to 3 to 1 to 4 to 1 to 5 to 1 to 6 (and hold) to 1 to 5 to 4 (and hold till breath expells from lungs) all in one breath. Then you change the note chromatically up. So that you start with C# and run up the C# scale. You keep going higher and higher until you cannot produce a good tone.

There you should stop and rest and play pedal tones. The best excersize that I learned from my professor for this was this excersize:
start: mid C to G to E to low C (hold until out of breath, then take a deep breath and) low C to low G (hold until tone is good) to E to low C to mid G to E to mid C (hold until out of breath)
go down in half steps and repeat same excersize.
start: mid B to F# to Eb to low B (hold until out of breath, then take a deep breath and) low B to low F# (hold until the tone is good) to Eb to low B to mid F# to Eb to mid B (hold until out of breath)
after this point you cannot finger any of the lower notes, so you will have use a combination of you embrochure and fingers to pop out all of the pedal notes. You go down chormatically (with all 6 configuration and back up).

This will build your range as well as endurance down and up there as well as tone control. My high school director always said: "Its like building a house, you must have more foundation in the earth to put another floor on top."

If you feel that your lips are tiring out, then I would say that you are over exerting yourself and not playing or warming up/cooling down correctly. Always warm up for five minutes before playing and cool down for five minutes afterwards. The moutpiece you choose should "feel" comfortable no matter what size or type it is. The biggest mistake people make is that they think that their playing is affected by their mouthpiece. Although, if you have played on the moutpiece for more than a month and still havent learned to play it correctly, then you should get another one. You have to try them all until you find the correct one. For me it is the Bach 3C Megatone.

Answer 2

I have been playing for, wow, going on 9 years now. I have a pretty crappy range and little to no endurance, but what I've found helps a lot is to go back to the mouthpiece you started on.( I started on a Conn 7C) What you then do is practice solely with that mouthpiece until you can get a good, solid high C on it. Make sure it's consistent. You can do this by doing long tones, pedal tones, scales, and some of the beginning exercises in the Arbans book. Once you're where you want to be on that piece, and if it feels too small and restrictive, look for something bigger...but not as big as a Bach 1 1/2C. Go up in increments.
Also, think about looking at different brands too. Bach is not God

I want to emphasize that I said long tones, pedal tones, scales, Arbans. Sadly, there is no 'quick' solution to getting amazing range and endurance. If there was, there would be a lot more trumpet players out there.

Another idea would be to take a deep, full breath and back off the pressure. Not all the way, but don't be pushing the horn through your face.

Take care, have fun with it, and don't give up! Trumpet players rock!
If you want more help, you can check out these websites (listed below)

Answer 3

I played for 10+ years. You may have to take a few weeks off. Your lip muscles are just like any other muscles. You may have overdone it and need some time to recover. Kind of like pulling a hamstring so you stay off the leg for a while. When I finally quit, after several months I realized I had built up scar tissue around my lips where the mouthpiece was. Took years for it to completely go away. I'm sure I got it from pressing too hard to reach those high notes. Probably would have done a lot better by letting my mouth heal for a while and then going back into it slowly. Think of it as a sports injury.

Answer 4

First, I would go back to a more comfortable mouthpiece. After finding one, then you can start practicing "long tones". You do this by Playing the notes of the scales as softly and long as you can. This will strenghten the muscles around the lips and give you more control.

Answer 5

There used to be a book for jazz players called “Play Double High C in 100 Days,” Maybe something like that would help.

Answer 6

start warming up with low notes..it will be easier for you to go higher [you probably know that already but whatev]

Answer 7

Maybe you need to see a doctor.

Answer 8

by blowing real hard

Answer 9

I have no clue