mouthpiece placement
WHAT THE HECK IS EINSETZEN ANYWAY? AND WHAT ABOUT THAT ANSETZEN??! IS THAT A THING TOO?
There are some strange-sounding words, like einsetzen and ansetzen that get tossed around to describe how the mouthpiece is put on a horn player’s face.
Have you ever heard these terms before?
First of all, let’s define what these words mean. I’m a ‘word-nerd’, so I love to look up meanings and origins of words and word use. These two words are just common words in the German language. They have many inferences, just like words in English that have multiple meanings and references.
In the case of mouthpiece placement, einsetzen means “inserted” or “put in” and ansetzen means “set” or “put on”. Do you see how EIN sounds like IN, and AN sounds like ON? That’s an easy way to remember which is which—and will have more meaning as we go.
However, there are 3 very important things to remember:
1) the buzz must be independent of the mouthpiece
2) the ability to buzz on the mouthpiece must be independent of the horn
3) the tongue is unrelated (more on the tongue later)
Disclaimer: these sorts of topics are best handled in person and everybody’s different (every body IS different!).
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These fancy German words EIN and AN are referring to where the mouthpiece rim sits ON or IN the bottom lip, i.e. (and very simply put) you can see the red of the bottom lip below the rim (EIN), or you cannot (AN). The ‘-setzen’ is where the mouthpiece ‘sets’.
SO HERE’S THE BOTTOM LINE
remember that #1 important thing above “the buzz must be independent of the mouthpiece”
1. make your embouchure by free-buzzing
2. place the mouthpiece on your lips where:
*it is comfortable
*it is centered from left to right
*it is higher than lower (2/3rd upper lip, 1/3 lower lip)
---the rest will be determined by your unique set up and your sound.
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