How to Play a Trumpet Without a Mouthpiece

Playing trumpet without a mouthpiece was viewed as an insult and a joke throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. With the coming of twentieth century came new techniques that composers asked instrumentalists to master and perform. Playing without a mouthpiece is one of these techniques.

Instructions

1. Use the mouthpiece to warm up as you normally would do. Buzz in your trumpet mouthpiece and simulate scales and melodic passages that you would rate as moderately difficult to difficult. Take at least 10 to 15 minutes to warm up on the mouthpiece.

2. Put your mouthpiece away and buzz with your lips only, as though you were doing so inside the cup of your trumpet mouthpiece. Spend at least 5 minutes buzzing.

3. Put your trumpet up to your mouth without the mouthpiece attached to the lead pipe. Place your lips on the open shaft of the lead pipe and buzz into the trumpet just as though there were a mouthpiece there. You will notice that the sound coming out of the horn is much more raspy than the tone you are used to. This is a direct result of producing much more pronounced vibrations from your lips that the mouthpiece is normally used to gather and redistribute.

4. Perform a Bb major scale using medium tempo quarter notes as your rhythm. Play at least one octave of the scale beginning on low concert Bb. Stop playing the horn after the scale is complete. Buzz your lips outside of the horn for 5 more minutes. Resume playing the trumpet, this time performing an Eb major scale starting on the concert Eb at the bottom of the treble staff. Play at least one octave moving upwards.

5. Buzz your lips with only the mouthpiece, not attached to the trumpet. Buzz for only two minutes or so. Start playing the trumpet again without the mouthpiece, this time performing a melody that you have memorized. Try and play a melody that requires you play over at least one and one-half octaves. The idea is to adjust your lips to playing both high and low without a mouthpiece.

6. Take the trumpet away from your face and flutter your lips for at least 5 minutes in order to get the blood flowing again. Repeat this entire process every other day for a week before you begin to start performing a larger number of scales and higher notes in the register.