Today we want to answer a question that we have received from a teacher about his student, but that, in general, many musicians also tend to ask him:
Why is it that when you start playing, sometimes the first note comes out wrong or simply doesn't come out? Could it be a problem with the mouthpiece or is it due to a technical problem?
Although the causes may be multiple, today we are going to focus on trying to explain what happens and why when the problem is related to the mouthpiece.
As we have said, the causes can be multiple but they will always be related to a part of the mouthpiece that is unbalanced in relation to the amount of air we are pulling.
In this entry we are going to explain what happens when the part of the mouthpiece that is unbalanced in relation to the amount of air we are blowing is the throat, since it is usually one of the most common causes!
The lip needs a certain retention of air for it to vibrate, and this first retention, the first obstacle that the air encounters, is neither more nor less than in the part of the throat.
In reality, instead of saying that the first note fails us, we would have to say that the lip vibration fails us. That the note does not come out is the consequence of the lip simply not vibrating.
The sound waves produced by the vibration of the lip find their first obstacle in the thorat, and the acoustic phenomenon known as sound reflection.
This phenomenon tells us that when the sound wave hits an object, it absorbs it or is reflected in multiple directions.
In some way, the pimple acts as if it were an object since the sound wave bounces off the pimple and returns back to the lip.
We have seen that there can be several causes and we have analyzed the pimple in more detail. But in the end, we will always end up in the same place and we have to compensate the mouthpiece with the amount of air we expel.
In future posts we will delve deeper into the rest of the causes, but so that you can perfectly understand the problem that concerns us today, don't miss the following video in which I explain everything in detail with practical examples and very descriptive images!
Greetings and lots of music!