Let’s talk high notes on the trumpet.

Range is one of those highly coveted skills most trumpet players aim for. A high and strong range allows you to sing through some of the most advanced and powerful orchestral repertoire, and if you’re a jazz player, it will unlock the expansive world of lead trumpet playing.

In this post, we’ll take you through some important considerations when aiming to develop your range and play high notes on the trumpet.

The content here is based on the tonebase course on range, taught by renowned trumpet player Chris Coletti. Let’s watch the intro to his course here:

To watch the entirety of this course for free and learn exactly how the Canadian Brass trumpet player builds his range, click here to sign up for a free 14-day trial to tonebase.

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Range on the trumpet

Most brass players are unaware of how we ascend to the high range, and when asking various professionals, we get a range of answers that may be incompatible. For Chris Coletti, it is important to be able to align your imagination with a picture that is at least anatomically correct.

The first step is understanding how muscles work. Muscles only pull — they don’t push — so flexing is just pulling. When playing well, we flex our lips and maintain the same aperture size. When your lips are constrained by the rim of the mouthpiece, they have their own natural frequency, like a drumhead. For lower notes, this “drumhead” needs to be looser, and for higher notes, the lip muscles need to be more flexed.

This does not mean you should flex your lips to play higher, as that often results in people closing them. In reality, the change in the tautness of the muscles within the mouthpiece to become a higher resonant frequency changes the notes. Like a drumhead tuned to C, you can speak into it, walk by, and tap it, and it will resonate on a C every time. You can get a flabby drumhead to speak, but you will have to hit it hard to get it to ring.

Tension with the mouthpiece

Test it out: Aperture Size

Play a note and then change the aperture size. You will notice that the note doesn’t change. Even with extreme aperture changes, from tight and small to big and open, the note doesn’t change. If it were the primary mechanism for changing partials, then you would have been playing all over the range of the trumpet.

Test it out: Air Speed

You can also test out airspeed. Change the airspeed as you play a note. You will notice that it doesn’t change the range of the note; it changes the volume. This shows that airspeed is not the primary mechanism for changing the note.

When you do a lip slur, there is a slight flexing of the lips and face and some motion in the tongue. The tongue is involved in changing the partial, but it comes back down after the note changes. It doesn’t change the range; the motion just bumps the next partial up or down.

As trumpet players, one of the most important things we master is the harmonic series. In pre-valve times, intonation and mastering the harmonic series were the only things we had to work on. All trills at that time were lip trills, and now trills are just an extra thing for us because we have valves.

Take some time to figure out how to lip trill consistently, and maintain this consistency during your regular practice.

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Tension with anatomy

We are often told to focus on strengthening or flexing our corners because the muscle mounted on our cheekbones wraps around one of the lip muscles. One muscle pulls the cheeks away, and the other muscles counter that. This is too complicated to control consciously. Essentially, the resistance of these two pulling muscles creates tension. There is no motion in the muscles, there is no change in position, there is only a change in tension. Tensing and closing the aperture is common but not helpful, so we want to isolate it so that when it is at rest, that space doesn’t change regardless of how high or low you are playing.

The aperture size is the point where your lips are actually at rest. The alternating high- and low-pressure waves are caused by your lips being blown out of the way and coming back in, which creates the frequency. The sound of the trumpet arises from standing waves in the air rather than the flow. The waves travel at the speed of sound, faster than the rate at which you blow the air.

There are two extreme points for the aperture: the point where it is closed and the point where it is extended because the air is flowing by and resonating back and forth (like a reed).

On a low note, at the extreme, the aperture is bigger because you are working with a looser material, and your lips are less flexed, but they still come back to the resting aperture size. They might not fluctuate much in the high range but are still more open than the aperture at rest.  Although there is a range of motion, if you want to be consistent, the aperture size doesn’t change much, between the two extremes of open and closed.

Experiment with whatever level of flexibility you have and explore the sensation to become more in touch with what is going on. This can be a helpful way to diagnose problems in your playing.

Flexibility is an important milestone for a brass player, and until you figure out how to lip trill, most trumpet players will use blowing harder to get higher. This strategy will never lead to true flexibility.

You may change your blow for all sorts of reasons but it is good to simplify that process and isolate these motions. Try very gentle flexing, not changing the aperture and not changing the blow. You might notice more air coming out on the low C, but you don’t have to blow out more air. From the neck down, your body should be completely unaware of what you are playing, just like the constant weight of the brick on the bag like an organ.

Pitfalls to avoid when playing high notes on the trumpet

A common pitfall is clamping your lips together, flexing in a way that changes the position. Instead, you need to preserve the aperture. If you focus on keeping the aperture for the most part preserved in your preferred position, when you flex to go higher, you won’t be pinching. You will become good at tightening the drumhead without stretching it out.

Additionally, smiling isn’t a healthy approach to playing higher because it takes the supportive muscles away and spreads them out as you go higher. Instead, we can pull our muscles against each other, which allows us to flex them without stretching them out. Some people say to pucker in, which can be helpful for some players because they were probably doing the opposite in the first place, not because it is the best way to play high notes.

Pressure is another pitfall, and while excess pressure is bad, there has to be some level of pressure. The right amount of pressure is precisely how much you need to keep a seal.

We change dynamics through the use of air in our lungs. In some cases, like a simple exercise, it can change the note. If you are using air to change the notes, the next step is to do all of that in your head with minimal changes in the torso.

Overall, pay close attention to how it feels to play. It should feel pleasant and it should sound like a massage on your ears. By training yourself to notice the sensations, you will very likely be able to tell when you are doing something that is not skillful versus something that is a normal part of playing.

Conclusion

As you can see, developing your range to play high notes on the trumpet requires a lot of care and specificity in how you shape your embouchure and manage your breath.

If you want to learn more about breathing practices on the trumpet, check out this blog post.

And if you want to really accelerate your progress on the trumpet, click here to sign up for a free 14-day trial to tonebase.

Happy practicing!