UNDERSTANDING SLOTS AND HOW TO LEARN THEM

At some point in your growth as a brass player, you’ll hear of a

reference to “playing the slots” or “slotting your notes”. Of
course, it will probably not be understood until you get some sort
of explanation. So this article is my attempt at trying to clarify
what this means and to do it in a way that you can understand it
well enough to do a “search and discovery” in the practice room
for practical use in performance.

Since we are always dealing directly with the physical universe

with our bodies and instruments, it is necessary to start by
stating in simple terminology what’s going on when we play. The
science of physics ( of which I AM NOT an expert and certainly
NOT a physicist ) is a vital area to focus on in getting started. In
this field, there is a subject called fluid dynamics. This is simply
a matter of air flow vs. resistance. When we take in air and then
compress it, we are creating air pressure within the lungs. Then
we must turn it around and force it out of the lungs, through the
trachea ( throat ) and into and through the oral cavity ( mouth ),
on into and thru the mouthpiece and finally through the horn. Our
overall goal is to be able to control the velocity ( speed ) of the
airstream. The greater the compression, the greater the velocity
can be created. Anatomically, there are many muscles in action
to produce this velocity. These muscles are part of what is
referred to as thoracic muscles, or as we refer to our main torso
as the thorax. More needs to be explained about these muscular
functions but that’ll be in a different article on breathing and the
respiratory system in general.

So, as the air moves upward and over the tongue surface and the
palate ( roof of your mouth ), it will hit the inside of your top lip
and push it forward towards the cup, allowing the air to go into
the cup of the mouthpiece. As it enters the cup, some of the air
will come back towards the lips in a “backdraft” action, simply
stated. This causes the top lip to vibrate back and forth and
while doing so, an eddy ( whirlpool ) will be forming around the
inside of the top lip which activates a sympathetic vibration in
the lower lip. So now both upper and lower lip surfaces are
vibrating with an aperture ( opening ) between them to allow the
air to flow on into the mouthpiece and then into and through the
horn. It is the action of these lip vibrations that produces your
sound. The instrument is more of an amplifier of those tones
produced by the vibrations.

There is another thing that needs clearing up here and that is a

semantics ( word definition ) issue. People often talk about lip
buzzing and tell students to buzz their lips. This is defined as the
lips squeezed much tighter together and producing a thin buzzing
sound much like a bee or wasp. This is a great way to build
muscle tone for the three primary muscles ( orbicularis oris,
depressor, and buccinator ) that surround the embouchure area
and that are essential in helping you develop as a player. BUT,
when you are buzzing, there is almost no air flow that can allow
you to perform. Buzzing is like doing situps to build strength but
you must separate the lip surfaces and create an aperture in
order to play. If your lips are touching when you try to play, you
will have problems.

Okay, so perhaps over simplified, that’s how the machinery works

for you to play. As the air moves into the horn, the mouthpiece
and tubing “resist” the flow to varying degrees , depending upon
their design factors. A larger, deeper cup and a larger bore horn
will not resist as easily because there will be a degree of
compression / velocity lost by the lack of resistance. I remember
when I was early on learning to play, other players always spoke
about horns having too much resistance, being “stuffy” so there
was a tendency to gravitate to larger bore instruments thinking
they would play more freely. And surprise, surprise when they
merely found themselves working harder to play and losing some
endurance as well. It turns out that resistance is your friend, not
your enemy. But until you understand how it all works, you’ll be
struggling with equipment choices as well as just about
everything else that pertains to playing with ease and success.

So, what is a slot? Another very simple definition is a note that is

BALANCED. That means machinery-wise, the balance between
airflow and aperture size. These are all pertaining to two obvious
aspects, DYNAMIC and REGISTER.
Regarding dynamic first of all, I often try to explain that rather
than paying attention literally to the traditional dynamic
markings of f’s , m’s, and p’s. These are merely visual and it is
extremely difficult to precisely estimate the difference between
p, pp, mp , etc. All they are referring to is SOFT. Then there is the
f group. f, ff, fff all refer to LOUD. In MANY cases, this merely
becomes OVERBLOWN and leaves the world of sound and enters
the ugly world of NOISE!!! In between those, we have our friendly
mf. That means MEDIUM.
So we can look at 5 different dynamics: TOO soft, soft, medium,
loud, TOO loud!
By approaching things this way, it forces you to use your ear to fit
in with what is going on around you and getting a better blend
with the other players. You must learn to INTERPRET the page
markings to understand the three workable and desirable
dynamics of SOFT, MEDIUM, and LOUD and to avoid the two
extremes of TOO!

The second aspect is register. This means low register, middle

register, and high register. Ultimately, one can learn these
elements of control well enough that you COULD look at your
horn as having only one register from bottom to top. It IS
POSSIBLE! So, a little bit of physics. The high register requires
faster moving air and the opposite for the low register and then
everything in between. Remember that we are striving to control
our velocity. Faster moving air creates faster vibration in the lip
surfaces which in turn produces higher pitched notes. It can be
somewhat equated with a guitar string or a piano string except
that our lips are one size whereas the strings on a piano vary in
thickness and length, depending upon the register. What WE do is
to vary the tension in the lip surfaces by using the muscle tone
derived from having been on a very good program of lip buzzing
as stated previously. And we vary the aperture size base upon the
two items, dynamic and register.

So, when you play a note and it does not center well, doesn’t
produce a full-bodied sound that FEELS centered and “locked–in”
when it is played, you have no slot. EVERY note on your
instrument is subject to the physical laws of overtones. These
can be difficult to understand at first because you don’t initially
hear them until they are missing. A note not centered will not
have the ideal resonance that the overtones bring into the sound.
These overtones add the “shimmer”, the “life”, the “prettiness”,
the “clarity” to any note. Every note has various frequencies
( vibrating waves ) in it. There are higher ones, mid-range ones,
and low ones. The lower register focuses more on the lower
frequencies which move more slowly and then the opposite in the
higher registers. Faster frequencies, brighter sound. We must
learn to be aware of them when we practice and work on them
consistently until they become second nature to us. By doing so,
you gain a much higher degree of control over your sound quality
and that also affects your other primary aspects of intonation,
endurance, range….all things that add up to our BIG goal of
EFFICIENCY. That is what the great players have mastered and
to the degree that they have NOT, they might be able to play quite
well by just determination and persistence but their endurance
might suffer as well as their intonation, quality of sound, etc. So,
following is a simple little drill that you need to start
incorporating into your practicing. You’ll see that I believe
strongly in starting in the middle register and working in both
directions until your control extends to the concept of the “one
register”.

Be warmed up but not tired. Take a fairly full breath. Play a G2

( second line ) at an mf dynamic ( medium ). Gradually and slowly
at first, drop your jaw with small increments of movement. You'll
eventually experience two things …..More open sound and freer
moving air. If you continue dropping the jaw, you'll reach a point
of "too far" and the sound will start to shatter, get airy, and the
pitch will drop. Plus, it will just FEEL wrong. Then raise the jaw
back up until you get the two items back in place. So, somewhere
in the "middle" you'll find your "sweet spot" where the two things
are the best. That's called a “slot". It's where your airflow and
aperture size become balanced acoustically ( physics ). This is
where you'll get the maximum overtones in your sound, the
richest resonance, the best center to the pitch of THAT NOTE AT
THAT DYNAMIC. This is where it will SOUND GOOD and FEEL
GOOD. This is a great definition that applies to gaining efficiency.
It means getting the most product out with the least amount of
effort, no extraneous pinching, pressing, grunting, squeezing, and
mostly no PRAYING. I like to call them the three P’s ….. PINCH,
PRESS, and PRAY!

So, repeat this several times until you gain good control of THAT
NOTE at THAT DYNAMIC. Then increase the dynamic to loud and
do the same thing repetitively to the same point of familiarity.
Then do the same with soft dynamic to the same result. Learning
to control ONE NOTE at all three dynamics is the beginning of
learning to control ALL notes at all three dynamics. Simple, eh?
Another good idea when you are initially learning this technique
is to NOT avoid doing the TOO SOFT and the TOO LOUD. Your
body will become very aware of the feelings you experience
when playing these. Generally speaking, playing softly causes
the average player to hold back in a state of fear and caution,
being careful to not play too loudly. The action of holding back is
a form of withdrawal and is NOT what you should be doing. Fear
comes from not knowing. Knowing comes from experimenting
until you DO know. If you avoid the mistakes in practice, you’ll
never understand them well enough to solve the problems
associated with playing that way. So, play the TOO SOFT and TOO
LOUD until you recognize how bad they feel. AND THEN , omit
them from your habits.

This exercise when done properly and musically becomes your lip
or better stated, "jaw vibrato". Eventually you must start playing
phrases utilizing the slot control device. Once you can really
control this ONE note, second line G, move up the diatonic scale
to A, repeating the process, and of course keep moving upward
through this one scale to the first ledger line A above the staff.
Then you should start moving downward to low C. Then perhaps
starting on 2nd line G again, ascend to high B, and once centered
go to high C. By this time you have the two octaves from low C to
high C pretty well locked in. Now do this chromatically up and
down to lock these other adjacent notes in as well. You’ll find
that the majority of your playing and most of the beautiful music
will fit in these two octaves. If you can play these well, you have
a decent enough setup of mechanics to start extending your
range above high C but keep everything gradual, half steps. If any
note you go to does not center properly, DO NOT continue on but
rather stop and handle the problem. I like to call this the “wipe
your feet” rule. If you step in something that stinks, wipe your
feet before continuing on because if you don’t , everything else
you do will contain that stink. With a horn and embouchure, the
stink is in the sound, the lack of slotting. Simple, eh? After these
basics are established, you must start to open up the intervals
but once again, be gradual. The wider the interval, the greater
the challenge. There’s nothing to be gained by allowing your
greatest enemy, your EGO, to try to run the show. Take your time
and learn correctly.

I sincerely hope this article helps you understand how to start

taking control of your playing by addressing the need to learn to
slot and gain maximum efficiency in performance. Wishing you
great success.

Bobby Shew…….@ December 25, 2014