For years I have taught to always have your arms free to move while playing your trumpet. My thinking was that with the added freedom of your arm movement, you would not restrict the natural movement of the horn as you pivot from high to low and back again. The idea of the pivot as promoted by Donald S. Reinhardt’s Pivot System has been taught for as long as I can remember. If you are not familiar with this concept, check out an outstanding introduction to this concept by David Wilken at An Introduction to Donald S. Reinhardt’s Pivot System.
Now back to the elbows..
In the past couple years I have been interested in limiting as much movement as possible when playing in the various registers of my instrument. Enormous changes in range can be done with far less movement than I have use in the past. Some of the best players I have had the honor to play with seldom move their lips more than the slightest. To achieve this more static approach I began consciously limiting my embouchure movement and began to see an improvement in my accuracy and range. My tone quality also improved as the center or core of my tone seemed more consistent throughout the range of my playing.
Back to elbows again….
In a moment of weakness or carelessness, I noticed that for the past couple weeks; I have acquired the “bad” habit of playing with my elbows firmly planted in the arm rests of my desk chair. What once I had condemned as pure laziness, I now began to evaluate as an advantage to limiting my embouchure changes. With elbows heavily imbedded into my soft arm rests I have been able to limit the movement of my embouchure and pivot of my jaw. This limiting seems to have minimized much of my extra embouchure movement.
I will continue to use this once condemned arm position and let you know if I still find it helpful.
