Matt Roberts Music

Advancing Your Trumpet Playing –Mastering Lip Flexibilities Part 1.3.1

Body Position 2

Looking back to the Green Stickman in the last post you can see the ideal body position for blowing. However because of the stick man nature he is looking pretty rigid and tense – as is the life of a stickman.
The posture in essence is accurate but it’s important to remain relaxed. Stand tall and proud to relieve any tension that restrict the muscles and therefore your air stream.

Muscle Position

For those who aren’t 100% on their biology the diaphragm works like this:

By a collection of muscles pulling the diaphragm down it creates a vacuum which allows your lungs to draw in air. (You must remember the bell jar experiment?!)
Simply put; pulling the rubber sheet (representing the diaphragm) down cause the balloons (lungs) to fill with air and pushing up causes the expulsion of that air. This it why it’s so important to leave the muscles as free as possible when in your natural playing position. They have a lot of work to do and are more efficient when they are free from unnecessary tension.