Parents + Students,
I found this article. Unfortunately it's in a word format and that always looks a bit silly on this blog, but I thought I'd post it anyway, as I know a lot of you will either have braces now or in the future!
All the Best
- Mr. Tubb
This article was first published in the
International Trumpet Guild Journal, January 2005
SO
YOU GOT BRACES…NOW WHAT?
By Grant Manhart, Northern State
University, and Thomas Dust, University of Alberta
My collaborating
colleague Thomas dust and I have spent many hours over the years discussing and
researching the psychological and physical events surrounding a trumpeter
acquiring braces. Tom is a professional trumpeter and the son of a dentist, in
addition to being professor of secondary education, and I am a professional
trumpeter and brother of a periodontist, in addition to being a professor of
high brass.
My personal high
school experience went as follows: There I was, a high school sophomore and I
had it all, first chair in a leading Wisconsin large high school band program,
when my mother said it was time to get top and bottom braces to correct “those
two crooked front teeth from your father’s side of the family.” Suddenly I am
sitting third chair, with thoughts of jazz ensemble and pep band lead trumpet
and brassy exciting solos…gone.
I was devastated.
I tried wax, pushing hard, not using any pressure at all, new and unusual
embouchures, consulted with my band director and local teachers, but nothing
seemed to help a bit! I did persevere, but not in a direction I would advise
anyone reading this article to go. I bit a hard sticky caramel bar which pulled
off the braces on my top front teeth. The situation became so frustrating for
the orthodontist and my mother that they both gave up on my top teeth. My teeth
eventually straightened on their own, and bottom teeth braces did not seem to
bother my playing, and I became a professional trumpet artist, and now a
university professor of trumpet.
My other more
realistic options were: 1) to have quit, redefining my young teenage self in a
different way, which seemed far too high a price to pay just for getting some
dental work done, and 2) to search the world over for a method of playing
trumpet with braces. In 1973, there was no literature, methods, or appliances
available to a young player with braces, at least that I could find. The most
learned advice I could find was “use soft wax,” and “bad luck…get used to it.”
Dr. Dust and I
have been searching for and experimenting with appliances and methods of playing
with which a young trumpeter enhanced with braces would experience:
¯ a minimal loss of range, technique, and
sound,
¯ the benefits of the braces their parents
are paying for, and
¯ a technique which would result in continued
muscular and musical development on the trumpet, which transfers positively
without radical change to playing when the braces are removed.
We researched the
Morgan Lip Bumper, the Jet-Tone Lip Protector, Brace Guard and Manhart’s Brace
Base (polysiloxane dental impression putty), Teflon pipe tape, and Infolab’s
“Brace Relief” kit. For my contribution to braces research, I had a local
dental lab make me a set of top braces, and I hit the practice room!
The Morgan Lip
Bumper and the Jet-Tone Lip Protector are flexible thin plastic shields that
fit snugly over the brackets and wire in a line. When playing with my braces, I
found these smoothed out the sharp edges of the braces but slightly enlarged
the “lump” that is the real problem of the braces on the top front teeth. I
found I could play by transferring virtually all the pressure of the mouthpiece
to my bottom lip…a very unnatural feel, but I eliminated the “goose call”
missed notes from the piece of top lip constantly pivoting in the mouthpiece
due to the lump under the mouthpiece.
Teflon pipe tape
proved to be tricky to get in place and keep in place, and due to its very thin
and light nature there is an elevated danger of possibly inhaling the tape. The
thinness of the tape eased somewhat the edges of the brackets.
The quick-hardening
polysiloxane dental impression putty mentioned above with the Brace Guard and
Brace Base products allowed me to play almost as well as before I put on the
braces and formed a smooth base for my embouchure. It seemed the harder I
pushed the mouthpiece into the relaxed top lep with the smooth base under the
lip, the more the lip relaxed and played with my pre-brace sound quality,
volume, and range, though the strange feeling was disconcerting at first. Each
brace protector I made was slightly different and I made five different styles
before I got a “great” one (it convinced me to make a digital movie of my
efforts and include it with the putty!).
“Going natural”
and toughing it out was extremely painful, and the brackets and braces caused
me to tense up the muscles in my top lip to fight the pain and control the flip
flopping of the top lip in the mouthpiece below the wire. If a student actually
gets calluses so he or she can push harder, the sound pattern will still be
inconsistent due to the lump of the brackets and wire. My best success was
experienced when I treated the embouchure as described above with the Morgan
Lip Bumper and the Jet-Tone Lip Protector, by transferring the mouthpiece
pressure to the bottom lip.
TOP
TEN THINGS TO REMEMBER WHEN YOU GET BRACES:
- Do not panic! You are the same fine
person and musician as you were the day before you received the dental
appliance. You will be remembered by how well you handled the adversity!
- Keep blowing! It is the wind
that activates the air in the trumpet and the lips that vibrate. There
will be a great tendency to shrink or squeeze your blowing in response to
the strange feelings.
- If you tense up your top lip and
squeeze you’re your air in response to the pain and strangeness, you will
likely have a tense and spitty sound.
- Try a number of methods, and go with
what works.
- If you have pain, sores, and bleeding,
stop!! Practice with more breaks and shorter phrases.
- Listen to the best trumpet playing you
can find, and constantly imagine it is you.
- When you play, insist on the best
sound and carry your articulations, music, and range through that sound.
- Do not go to extremes to find the
range you had yesterday. Your range today with braces will be different,
at least for a while.
- Accept that it is going to feel
different!
- Go slowly when the braces come off.
You will have grown and changed musically since the braces were first put
on, and instantly demanding your old range, sound, and endurance usually
deforms an otherwise fine embouchure. You must relearn the trumpet for a
bit!
Information on the
following products can be found on the Internet at:
Teflon pipe tape –
used to seal threaded plumbing joints…get it from your local hardware store!
