Archived under: Embouchure, Teaching | David Hickman
The Floating-Jaw Embouchure
Yesterday I had a question about a type of trumpet pedagogy that I wanted to research and I turned to this book, one I posted about first on 10/11/06 in what was the last post in my original blog.
My ASU trumpet colleague David Hickman has out a new book, Trumpet Pedagogy, which is described at http://www.hickmanmusiceditions.com/hickman-pedagogy-book.asp 
This book is massive, over 500 pages. It has been out only a couple weeks; at least 75% of the content has a lot of direct application to horn playing and teaching. I was involved with some of the early proof reading, and I am very impressed with how well it turned out.
Yesterday, reading my copy I noted a term I had never seen in a horn text but it describes perfectly an element of the horn embouchure. In the trumpet world there are teachers that advocate a “fixed-jaw” embouchure and teachers that advocate a “floating-jaw” embouchure. In horn teaching the latter is really the only approach at an advanced level, as changes in jaw position (“drop the jaw!”) really help in low range production.
I like the term “floating-jaw.” It gives you a good visualization of what needs to be done to open up the lower range.
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