Embouchure

Embouchure (ˈɒmbuˌʃʊər) or lipping is the use of the lips, facial muscles, tongue, and teeth in playing a wind instrument. This includes shaping the lips to the mouthpiece of a woodwind instrument or the mouthpiece of a brass instrument. The word is of French origin and is related to the root , 'mouth'. Proper embouchure allows instrumentalists to play their instrument at its full range with a full, clear tone and without strain or damage to their muscles. While performing on a brass instrument, the sound is produced by the player buzzing their lips into a mouthpiece. Pitches are changed in part through altering the amount of muscular contraction in the lip formation. The performer's use of the air, tightening of cheek and jaw muscles, as well as tongue manipulation can affect how the embouchure works. Maintaining an effective embouchure is an essential skill for any brass instrumentalist, but its personal and particular characteristics mean that different pedagogues and researchers have advocated differing, even contradictory, advice on what proper embouchure is and how it should be taught. One point on which there is some agreement is that proper embouchure is not one-size-fits-all: individual differences in dental structure, lip shape and size, jaw shape and the degree of jaw malocclusion, and other anatomical factors will affect whether a particular embouchure technique will be effective or not. In 1962, Philip Farkas hypothesized that the air stream traveling through the lip aperture should be directed straight down the shank of the mouthpiece. He believed that it would be illogical to "violently deflect" the air stream downward at the point of where the air moves past the lips. In this text, Farkas also recommends that the lower jaw be protruded so that the upper and lower teeth are aligned. In 1970, Farkas published a second text which contradicted his earlier writing. Out of 40 subjects, Farkas showed that 39 subjects directed the air downward to varying degrees and one subject directed the air in an upward direction at various degrees.