Reinhardt Compared to Farkas

One of the things I have found very interesting in this series is trying to set the context for why Philip Farkas wrote what he wrote in his publications. The big picture being that Farkas has a point of view that was impacted by his reactions to other publications already in print.

As is noted in the quote below from the article I also linked yesterday by David M. Wilken, Donald Reinhardt presented some distinct ideas in his publications about airstream direction as early as 1942. While never indicated by Farkas, it seems as if Farkas was directly reacting to Reinhardt in his publications. Check out his article for the full story, but the below is the key section of his discussion.

In order to understand the nine embouchure types described by Reinhardt it is important first to understand the two basic blowing categories, upstream and downstream.

In 1962 Phillip Farkas published a very popular book entitled “The Art of Brass Playing.” In this text Farkas describes his theories about the brass player’s embouchure, including his hypothesis that it goes against logic to “violently deflect” the air stream downward at the point of where the air moves past the lips (Farkas, The Art of Brass Playing, page 7). According to Farkas, lining up the upper and lower teeth with one another through proper jaw positioning will result in the air stream traveling straight into the shank of the mouthpiece and provide better results (Farkas, The Art of Brass Playing pages 8-9).

Eight years later, in 1970, Farkas published a book entitled “A Photographic Study of 40 Virtuoso Horn Player Embouchures.” This newer text shows 40 French horn players’ embouchure while playing into mouthpiece visualizers. It is interesting to note that out of these subjects 39 were noted to be blowing the air downward and one was directing the air upward. None were seen to be blowing their air stream straight towards where the shank of the mouthpiece would be.

This later publication by Farkas replicates research published by Reinhardt as early as 1942. In his text Pivot System for Trombone, A Complete Manual With Studies Reinhardt briefly described his four basic embouchure types with descriptions of how the air stream can leave the vibrating points of the lips in either an upward or a downward direction. Doug Elliott, a student of Reinhardt’s from 1974-1984, wrote concerning air stream direction, “When the placement is more on the top lip, the top lip will predominate into the mouthpiece, and the air will blow down. When the placement is more on the bottom lip, that lip predominates, and the air blows up. If the placement is close to half-and-half, one lip or the other will inevitably predominate, so the air stream will go either up or down.” (Elliott, 1998).

Other research into brass embouchures confirms that the air stream travels past the lips almost always in an upward or downward direction, rarely straight into the shank.

In this case, the topic of airstream direction, I believe time has proven Reinhardt correct. To expand on what Wilken wrote in his article, to blow right down the middle of a mouthpiece would in fact require exactly a 50/50 placement. All horn players with an embouchure resembling a standard embouchure blow the airstream downward to some degree as illustrated among other places by the Farkas Photographic Study. For more evidence, check out the video in this post.