Cant Play petals past A

[AshDoughnut]

I’ve been trying to learn petals and I can’t seem to get past a petal A with the “correct” embouchure. I can sorta get past if I use my top lip to vibrate but it sounds terrible, shallow and very flat if I use my top lip and anchor with my bottom.
I spent 30 minutes in a lesson with my trombone tutor trying to play past an A but I can’t seem to get anything to come out when I use my bottom lip to vibrate and anchor my top lip to the top of the mouthpiece.
I’m doing everything he says; pushing my jaw down and out(forwards, toward the trombone sorta), opening my jaw, tilting the trombone tip up, and tilting my head downwards but I can’t get a good sound to come out if anything at all. I’ve been working on them for the past 2 weeks and I’ve gotten nowhere even with searching the internet for similar issues. Everyone I talk to says petals have never been an issue for them so they don’t really know how to help and it’s getting really frustrating because I don’t know what I’m doing incorrectly.
Please give advice for petals just not coming out and my lip not catching.

[BGuttman]

I expanded my pedal range by glissing: Bb-A-Bb, Bb-A-Ab-A-Bb, etc. It takes time. Won't happen in a day.

Note that pedals take "slow air" -- don't push them.

[MTbassbone]

Get a Skype lesson with Doug Elliott. He is often able to quickly diagnose any problems, and devise a solution. I have taken a few lessons with Doug both on Skype and in person. He is able to provide extremely valuable feedback and solutions in as little as 15 to 30 minutes. I'll echo what Bruce said about it not happening in a day. Be persistent, have patience, and be kind to yourself. Rinse repeat, rinse repeat.

[Doug Elliott]

Here's my advice:. Don't worry about it. Pedals are not important AT ALL. I couldn't play any pedals, not even Bb, for my first several years.

[harrisonreed]

I dunno about petals, but traditionally you played pedals, as opposed to manuals, with your feet. So you kind of flipped how you played upside down. (That's on a pipe organ)

Interestingly, on trombone, you usually have to reverse your embouchure for "pedals". I'm a downstream player. All the action is happening around my lower lip in the mouthpiece cup. But to play a fat pedal, I have to play upstream. Completely turning the way I play upside down. Just like organ pedals.

Sounds like your teach is giving you similar advice -- if you're a downstream player. Maybe you're actually an upstream player.

[Doug Elliott]

You will be much better off long-term if you just stop trying to play pedals, especially by changing your embouchure placement to try to get them.

[Crazy4Tbone86]

I agree that the “don’t worry about it” approach is good advice. As a teenager, I rarely played more than B-flat and A for a few years.

I do remember the first time I played Cavatine by Saint-Saens, it has the pedal B-flat, A and A-flat. I couldn’t play the A-flat when I started working on the piece.

My teacher’s recommendation helped me develop my pedals. He told me to play the pedal B-flat and “bend” the pitches down to A, A-flat, G, etc….. without moving the slide. I did that for a couple of weeks and was able to add several pitches (with the proper slide positions) to my range.

Concerning shifting, pivoting, and other embouchure adjustments, I think it is best for you to work that out with your teacher. The one thing I do (different from your description) for pedal notes is anchor my bottom lip on the mouthpiece because I want to allow the top lip to vibrate freely on pedals.

Each range can have a different anchor point. The description that Jeff Reynolds uses in his book is exactly what I use for the different registers. I think his explanation can be found online.

[WGWTR180]

PEDALS.

[Danitrb]

"Don't worry" suggestion is certainly valid, but since you write this is important to you, I think there are some things that could help you:
-tongue doesn't make sound, but in the pedals register tongue position could be really crucial (you can learn this from Alessi and Vernon);
-don't move the mouthpiece away from your lips, the embouchure is certainly more open and relaxed than if you were playing 2 octaves higher, but you mustn't lose the stability of the mouthpiece on the lips;
- try to make a pedal that sounds good, surely Bb, and gliss slowly until you find the next one, and so forth for the next days and weeks. Works on one note until you feel comfortable and then go to the next.
Don't aspect this works immediately, you are trying to find good quality so it is normal spend time on this. Also this is normal for everybody.

[musicofnote]

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[BigBadandBass]

If you’re bass player, this is an issue, if you’re not, then don’t even worry about it until you see it in ink. You’re gonna play above the staff more often than below the stuff, focus on the 90% range and not the 10% of the edge cases

[harrisonreed]

One reason to not ignore pedals is that they do improve your other registers. If you do a lot of work in the low register, trigger register, and work on slurring down into the the pedals, you'll likely find that all your other registers improve.

[musicofnote]

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[Gmorganbrass]

I think working on false tones is a great intermediate step to getting pedal tones to pop out. Have you done any work with those? Bending the pitch down until you find the resonance at low F in first position, low E in second, etc... You might find that once you can do that reliably in a particular position, if you bend the pitch down a little more, you'll have a pedal tone pop out.

This has already been said, but - lots of glissing down from the lowest note you can already play and not worrying about it being a slow process!

[Cmillar]

Gordon Sweeney, former principal trombonist of the Toronto Symphony, never played pedal tones as the story goes. Just never did.

Nothing wrong with his playing!

[imsevimse]

For me easy pedalrange depends on the rimsize. On a 11C I can play a usable pedal G but Gb is weak and F is just a whisper, but below G on a small bore they are not necessary and if they need to be there I know I can use a "raised emboushure" to get them if I have to. The "raised emboushure" is a technique that many use to be able to play the pedals with voume. They usually move the mouthpiece up and let the top lip flap and the bottom lip might not even be in the mouthpiece. I use this technique, but I do the opposite. I move the mouthpiece down and let the bottom lip flap instead and then in my case the top lip is not flapping, this works too. I've tried the opposite but even if that works too I prefer to flap the bottom lip, it harmonize more with my other emboushure, because I feel in normal playing my top lip is the one that is more anchored, any pressure in normal playing is on that lip and the bottomlip/jaw is then what's more loose This will not change too much even if I slide the mouthpiece down. I feel the "raised emboushure" technique then can be controlled better, it just need a lot of practice, and in time maybe this changes does not need to be that much. I've felt I have occasionally been able to get the notes with just a minor mouthpiece change too. I beleave the key is NOT to let the mouthpiece slide too much, not as much as to completely loose contact with the upper lip, I think that is too take it too far, because it will be harder to slide back into normal emboushure again if you loose contact totally on one lip.
Just to continue with the wider rim/easier pedal theory: On a Bach 5-ish mouthpiece I can play a usable pedal Gb on the normal emboushure and then the F is weak and on a Bach 4-ish mouthpiece I can play the F-pedal. On a bass trombone with Bach 1 1/4 I can play a pedal D now without emboushure change and a pedal Db on a Bach 1. The raised emboushure of course works on bass too and then I can play the double pedals.

I've been advised to work on my regular emboushure and not rely on that raised emboushure but I think it is just another tool in the box (if you can do it). In a bass it is good to be able to overlap the emboushure change. I can play a few notes with both emboushures.

As others have said on a tenor you do not need the lower pedals much. Many tromboneplayers can not play pedals below pedal G on small equipment.

/Tom

[timothy42b]

Have you seen the Mantia warmup? It alternates quickly between pedals and high notes. I have a PDF of it, can't remember where I got it. (Possibly when someone posted that collection of exercises by famous trombonists.)

I'm not saying it's a good idea! And no I don't play it. But if you're interested I'll try to share the pdf.

[elmsandr]

First, Doug, Tom and others are a lot better players and teachers than I have ever been or ever will be. But from a different direction…. I learned pedals really early, like first maybe second year of playing. I had to do some really stupid things embouchure wise to get them to sound… AT FIRST. Ike, literally shifting the mouthpiece a ton and anchoring one lip almost not vibrating on the rim and letting the other flap almost willy-nilly. Really stupid. Don’t play that way in public. Ever. BUT, it gave me the feel of what it sounds like and how it feels to make something happen down there.

Take that feeling, and with the help of a good teacher figure out how to get that with a normal, proper embouchure. In somewhat short order, I know that I added a few lip slurs with pedals into my daily routine. I should probably put one of those back in.. it is not triplets at 110 bpm anymore.. I’d be lucky if it were 70 this morning. But you can’t do this with the stupid set up. Or rather, if you do you will create more problems for yourself later on completely unrelated things that will make no sense.

Maybe I’m just gifted at them, but I don’t understand the comments about not having pedals on some equipment. If I’ve got the tubing length, I’ll have at least a single pedal there. Small bores and mouthpieces? I find those pop pedals easier than basses in most cases. As always, YMMV.

So, if you insist on pushing to add them, just be careful that you don’t do something stupid to force it that screws up something else. It is easier to develop problems than to fix them, unfortunately.

Cheers,
Andy

[tbonesullivan]

For me, the pedal range is interesting, and I can say that moving to a huge mouthpiece with a big open throat will not help. In fact for me it made pedals go away. Getting the pedal tones to work for you is somewhat like tuning a carburetor on an old gasoline engine. The size of the jets that let the gas in need to match up with the resistance of the exhaust system if you want it to run well.

Practice is really the only way, and you've got to really learn to "slow down the air", as was said previously. Pedal tones are a somewhat unique tone, and some brass instruments, like trumpets, don't even have them, as the ratio of bore to length is too high. Also I recall someone doing a sound analysis of the pedal note, and in actuality, it's almost entirely made up of over tones, which very little fundamental.

If you really need to blast out low pedal and don't care about the sound, you can always "half-lip" it, with a big shift of the mouthpiece. That is honestly the only way I've been able to get loud pedals below pedal F.

[Mr412]

The same as in training the chops to play high notes, the chops have to be trained and actually re-grow so they will vibrate correctly. Both ranges take time. Correct practice helps. You can't do it all in one session. Give it your best and then let it rest. Meanwhile, don't "worry" unduly about it, but since we all have a sense of pride, we are all usually concerned when something doesn't work as we want it to. So be concerned enough to practice well and let nature take its course.

[mbarbier]

I found Charlie Vernon's A Singing Approach to be such a huge help with the pedal (and everything else) range. The excercises and explanations are excellent.

But also just a ton of consistency and patience in the approach. Doing it everyday with an expectation of slow, cumulative improvement is the way

[hwlentz]

Brad Edwards addressed this on his “Trombone Tip Tuesday” Instagram post this week:



That said, I’ve never played a piece that called for anything other than a pedal Bb.

[Doug Elliott]

Watch Brad's chops as he goes down past the Ab... There's NO shift, just firm corners and letting the lips blow forward, as he says. It requires a certain center relaxation that's not easy to find - it takes time to develop that skill.

[harrisonreed]

It looks to me that he is playing upstream for all of those. But his embouchure looks to be a classic downstream type.

That's a shift, of sorts.

[Doug Elliott]

There's absolutely nothing about it that looks upstream to me.