Diffuse sound in lower register when playing soft

[norbie2018]

Any suggestions for exercises or approaches to use to get a more centered tone quality playing low softly? I play on a Yamaha 882G0 with a Warburton 4gs mouthpiece if you're wondering.

Thanks!
Michael

[Burgerbob]

The low range takes more focus at the chops than you think, especially when playing soft. Bring the middle register soft feeling down.

[Savio]

Yes, maybe you loosen up to much. The low register needs firm chops. Our face must not be like jelly down there.

Leif

[VJOFan]

To add to the good advice so far is a personal observation that, in my playing, to get a beautiful loud sound and a beautiful soft sound the perceived physical feel is almost opposite to what an audience member might believe is happening.

When I am really letting the sound go that is how it feels. I am very relaxed and it feels pretty easy to just release the notes into the hall. I am using energy and strength but not the way I would to lift a heavy weight.

When I am playing delicately there is a greater feeling of using my torso muscles and my embouchure muscles. Probably because I am not allowing my rib cage to collapse (and push out too much air for the volume I want) and I am perhaps controlling a smaller aperture in my embouchure.

I wouldn't call my soft playing set up tense by any means but there is a certain tension that arises when I am playing sustained soft passages. But the tension is in the mid-torso and the embouchure, not the throat or shoulders or neck.

[imsevimse]

I agree to what's been said above and just add something from my experience...

There are great benefits from soft playing, but I did not experience this until I combined it with legato playing and playing the legato with no tongue. This means the soft playing must be done right to be effective just as anything we want to accomplish. It's not enough just to play soft.

Long soft legato phrases with no tongue helps the sound, but it also improves control in general. If it's done right It has many other good side-effects.

As others have said. To be successful with soft playing needs a lot of activity and coordination. A lot of activity might be against your beliefs because you might think that playing soft is just to do less of everything, but I've found that thought not to be very successful, instead It helps to think of all sources involved to be used in balance and try to make the fullest sound possible with the smallest amount of air needed in any register with any tool.

This way of thinking seems to improve many things. To evolve on this I start to streach the phrases as a way to challenge my soft playing.

You can start to hold a single note in a comfortable register with a minimum of air and see how many seconds you can last that note as a reference. Then you take the largest breath possible and see how long you can last under those circumstances. This latter result could be your goal when you start to streach phrases.

Then when you play music that spans over a larger register you will use more air so probably a bit shorter.

Since I started to play my folk songs like this I have increased my skills to play long phrases. Now I can play phrases that lasts about 18 seconds. This is as long as the notes are in the middle of the staff, or above the staff. The length is just enough to cover the folk songs I do in a comfortable register.

The folk songs are often built on four bar legato phrases which means in a tempo of 60 beats per minute they are doable, but I need to play soft because I'm not a big guy.

If I would play louder then the phrases need to be shorter or the tempo faster.

If I only play above the staff then the phrases can be longer.

The work and thinking I have done so far has improved both my sound, my soft playing, my loud playing, my endurance, my tone control and my legato. I no longer have the limitations I had before I started to practice like this. I have moved some borders.

The practice I do is not only to adress the low register in particular and can improve playing in any register.

I need more air in the low register so when I play low phrases I naturally run out of air quicker. To find a realistic how-long-phrases-to-play-goal in beats-per-minute in the low register you just need a lower note as a reference and measure that note.

/Tom

[whitbey]

I find using glisses are real helpful.
Playing from 1st position to sixth. You have to fill the horn up as it gets longer. The steady change helps you take a nice mid range sound down 6 notes at a time. Frequently as you move out the sound gets thin. When it does, just stop and try again. After you get one partial then try the next partial down.
After you get as low as you can then go back to the mid range in 6th position and go up.
Like many exercises, doing it and doing it well are two different things.

[GBP]

I do that study out of the Vernon book that combines soft playing with legato technique as slow as you can play it. I do it in all keys. It really helps to give my soft playing clarity and focus.

[norbie2018]

Which study? Which version of the Vernon book?

[AndrewMeronek]

I had a problem with low register tone way back in college. I remember Kenneth Thompkins (my individual instructor at the time) had me do mouthpiece buzzing of the specific problem notes. You can't mouthpiece buzz without good focus.

Of course, keep in mind that playing the horn will be mechanically slightly different from mouthpiece buzzing, but the buzzing can be a pretty useful tool in this sense. Also, note that bass trombone mouthpieces (when buzzed by themselves) have a natural acoustic 'break' in the low register that will make this trickier.

I don't actually do this any more (I have other things I do that are nowadays more effective for me) but at the time it helped.

[norbie2018]

I don't actually do this any more (I have other things I do that are nowadays more effective for me) but at the time it helped.

Would you mind sharing those other things?

[AndrewMeronek]

Would you mind sharing those other things?

Stuff I've worked on with Doug Elliot. It's pretty personalized, so my particular tools may not apply to everyone. Boiled down to the basics, though, a lot of it revolves around making sure the somewhat-misnamed 'pivot' is lining up correctly. If you haven't seen the primer on this stuff, David Wilken has a great set of videos of it on Youtube:

[norbie2018]

Thanks!