Would you like to learn how to play lip bends on trumpet?

If you want to learn how to master the art of bending notes on trumpet, then you're in the right place. I'm going to teach you the technique today in this video. This technique allows you to be expressive in your trumpet playing and it's used a lot in the jazz idiom. 

So let's not wait anymore. Let's get straight to the lesson.

First, get these two things in order.

Play Solid Long Tones

Now, there are a few things that you need to already have in place before you even consider bending notes on your trumpet.

And the first thing you need to do is practice long tones. 

This is something you should do regularly anyway. And if you're thinking about bending your notes, by this point, long tones should be a regular habit.

Now, why do I say start with long tones? Well, that's because it's a fundamental part of trumpet playing and there aren't a lot of moving parts. 

The main thing you need to concern yourself with is blowing steady wind into the trumpet.

That's it.

Make sure your sound is steady. Your sound will be steady if your wind is steady and if your body is still. 

So practicing long tones helps to make sure that's already in order.

Develop the Ability to Play Lip Slurs

The second thing you need to already have in place are lip slurs.

You need to have the ability to play lip slurs already. Lip slurs include two of the fundamental parts trumpet playing. 

So you already have your steady wind in place. And on top of that, you're going to add the control of the tongue. So in order to play lip slurs successfully, you have a steady wind that's guided by the tongue. 

Now, I teach how to play lip slurs in a different video. That's not the focus of this video, but you do need to have that in place. And once you have that together, now you can begin to practice and explore bending your notes. 

Side Note

Now, I think it's important to include this side note here, which is the term lip bends and lip slurs can be misleading because when it comes to trumpet playing, the entire function of the lip is to vibrate. 

That's it. So we don't really want to think about controlling our lips. Nope, we don't want to do that.

We just want to focus on having a steady blow. And we change pitch by changing the direction of the wind, and we do that by changing the tongue. 

Your Body is the Primary Instrument

Now, if you ever have the opportunity to study privately with me, there's a phrase that I'll say as often as I can, which is my body is the primary instrument.

You see, everything that you hear come out of the bell of the trumpet is first produced by the body. 

I'm talking everything you have in your imagination comes out of the bell. If you have tension in your body, there's going to be tension in your sound.

Everything is first produced by the body. And so for that reason, I'm going to teach you how to play lip bends with the body first. 

And then we'll get to the trumpet.

Step 1: Blow Steady Wind

So the first thing we need to do is just blow steady wind out. That's where the long tones come in. So right now, I just take a relaxed breath in and blow steady wind out. 

You can check yourself by putting your hand in front of your face just to make sure that the wind is not going every which way, but that's going straight into the center of the palm of your hand. 

All right, do that right now.  Blow cold air in the palm of your hand.

How did you do?

Was it steady?

Alright. If it wasn't that steady, just keep practicing that until it is if it is steady.

Let's move on to step number two. 

Step 2: Using the Tongue to Guide the Wind

Alright, now that we can blow steady wind, we're going to change the direction of the wind by raising and lowering of the tongue.

So when you're practicing lip slurs, you hear people say syllables like AH and EE. 

And that's because when you use those syllables, the tongue is lowered for AH and it's raised for EE.

And so I'm going to do that right now without vocalizing it. I'm just going to go to the "ah" and "ee" position of the tongue without vocalizing it. 

So if I were vocalizing it, it sounds like, AH-EE-AH-EE, but I'm going to do that with steady wind and listen to how it sounds.

I'll do that again straight into the mic.

Now while I'm doing that, the wind sounds like it's changing. But I'm telling you, the velocity of my wind was the same. It was constant. You heard it changed because I lowered the tongue and I raised the tongue. And when I did that, the direction of the wind changed and the speed changed as well. 

Because when I raised the tongue higher, that accelerates the wind.

So when you're playing slurs in your body, it should really be that simple. Okay?

When we add the trumpet, people lose focus and they make things more complicated than they need to be. 

But it should be as simple as what we just did with the body.

All right?

Transition to the Mouthpiece

Now everything that I just did with my body, I'm about to do in the mouthpiece. So let's start with steady wind.

Alright, so if you're able to do that and hold it steady, you're ready for step two, which is to add the tongue. 

This is what it sounds like.

Now I feel it's important to say that you should play whatever note naturally comes out for you. That's the note that naturally came out for me. Yours might be higher or lower. 

Whether it is doesn't matter. Whatever your first pitch is, just go lower from there and return to it.

We're finally ready to bend notes on trumpet.

For a second, I want you to imagine an elevator that's going from one floor down to the next floor. 

Now the floor represents a definitive slot. Okay? So if I'm going from the third floor down to the second floor, the third floor is one slot, the second floor is a different slot that's lower.

Well, what about that in between state? 

That space between the third floor and the second floor that represents the lip bend. That is a space that we can occupy on the trumpet. So I like to say that a lip bend is a slur in slow motion.

So let's go back to the body and I'm going to do the lip bend or the slur in slow motion. 

Sounds like this.

That's it.

So again, that steady wind. In this case, I'm starting with the tongue high and I am lowering the tongue slowly. Okay? This is what it sounds like in the trumpet. 

Alright, so in that example, I just started on G and I slowly let the note fall flat until I went past the other pitches and I finally settled in on the second floor or the note to C. All right, so here's how you can practice lip bends. 

Start on a definitive note, go down by half step and return to the original note, as you normally would finger it. And then on the second pass, don't finger the second note, but bend it. Here's a demonstration. 

And you just do that all the way down to the bottom of the trumpet.

Now, here's a bonus tip for you.

Lip bends are harder to play as you go higher because the partials are closer. So if this is brand new to you, it's better to start in the middle range of the trumpet, which is what I'm calling second line G. 

And go down from there.

Benefits of Practicing Lip Bends on Trumpet

Benefit 1: Lip Bends Help Discover Your Resonant Centered Sound

Now, what are some benefits to practicing the bends? Why would anyone want to do this? Well, one thing is that lip bends help you find the resonant center of your sound.

If you're able to control a note so much that you can bend it without pressing valves, that will allow you to have better control of the trumpet, just plain and simple. 

So when you're playing in a section with other trumpet players, or in the band with other wind instrumentalists, you can hear, you can listen and adjust without always needing to move the tuning slide. 

That's a big deal.

Benefit 2: Increased Blood Flow to the Lips

A second benefit of playing lip bends is blood flow. Playing lip bends can help the blood flow to the lips, which can relax the face. You don't have to be so tense in the muscles of the face and the lips, and so you can blow your trumpet freely. 

This is especially helpful at the end of a practice session or at the end of a performance, which leads us to our third benefit, which is practice. In this way can train your body to maintain a relaxed state as you ascend into the upper register. 

And finally, practicing lip bends can help you to have increased endurance because you're learning to play in a relaxed state without a lot of tension, without a lot of pressure.

Here is a Gift For You

And if you're someone that uses a lot of pressure when you play trumpet and you want to improve in your endurance, I want to encourage you to download my new book called Master Endurance on Trumpet so that you can learn the three reliable steps that truly help you practice techniques that build endurance. 

The link to the book is in the description below. Go ahead and click.

Question of the Day

Why do you want to practice lip bends? I told you about the benefits, but what is your purpose? Tell me in the "comments section" below. 

Listen in the next video next week, I'm going to teach you about pedal tones. You don't want to miss it. Until then, click or tap on the video on the screen and continue your learning. I'll see you there.