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Why do my lips hit the bottom of the cup? (Read 331 times)

Mitch

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Why do my lips hit the bottom of the cup?
06/12/10 at 03:25:04

Today I when I was playing my cornet and flugelhorn I got too tired to hit anything higher than a staff C. I wanted to keep playing so I thought I'd try a Rudy Muck Cushion Rim mouthpiece, size 19C, that I have, on my cornet. Well, I could hit the high notes again, but that mouthpiece gave me a thin, tinny sound that I didn't like and my lips hit the bottom of the cup. I tried my Jet Tone 7-M-C and my lips hit bottom in that, too.

Am I doing something wrong or are those mouthpieces just too shallow for me?

Normally I use a Giardinelli 7C with no problems.

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DrDave

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Vancouver, BC Canada
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Re: Why do my lips hit the bottom of the cup?
Reply #1 - 07/22/10 at 21:17:30

Different players have varrying degrees of intrusion into the cup depending on their anatomy and embouchure. This will affect how quickly they bottom out, as will swelling. The alpha angle also affects bottoming out.

Some players tend to bottom out more if they are used to a deeper cup, and can over time adjust to a shallower cup if they try. If you are bottoming out it does not mean that you are doing anything wrong. It just means that the cup is too shallow for you at this point, which you might or might not be able to change if you worked at playing a shallower cup for a while. That is assuming there was any reason to do so.

Cheers,
Dave

Dave Harrison
(Dr Dave)
www.wedgemouthpiece.com

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PLeask

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Re: Why do my lips hit the bottom of the cup?
Reply #2 - 07/31/10 at 12:04:30

As DrDave said, a shallower cup, when you're playing as though you are using a deeper one, will make you bottom out. With deeper cups, most people's lips go further into the cup then with a shallower one. When you swap to a shallow one, you won't be used to this, and you lips will hit the cup. Also, when you are playing on borrowed time, you facial muscles will be ruined, so you won't be able to do anything about the intrusion into the cup as your lips won't have the strength left to pull your lips in.

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