Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2025-05-25 17:10
I like what graham said. Long ago I had the same problem of losing air at the corners of my mouth, but it went away. Fairly quickly, too. The reasons were unclear, but at some point I started trying to make ALL the air go into making sound and nothing else!! and that vague directive somehow changed something I was doing. Something about tongue placement or shape, or jaw position . . . . I didn't analyze it. (One of the zillion times a teacher would have been handy.)
At this point, it feels like there's zero effort to contain air with the lips. If there's air pressure at those corners, either the muscles have strengthened too much to notice it - or there isn't any. I perceive no exertion in that regard at all. (The lips may eventually fatigue from being vibrated by the mouthpiece, but that seems a different thing, and it takes hours of continuous play.)
Tongue position / shape is involved in directing, or better to say, containing, the air column. Lips have less or little to do with that containment.
Suggestion: in practice when you're fresh, try to deliberately make the problem want to happen with something you're doing, not with your lips, but with your tongue, jaw, mpc angle or insertion depth, etc. See if you can turn it on and off. Maybe that will clue you in to something.
Or consult a teacher.
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