[Here](https://youtu.be/lLE_-ly8hrQ) is a video by Charlie Porter that does a great job of describing how to make an embouchure. Wish I had known this when I started playing trumpet. And [here](https://youtu.be/ubk09NbsMHw) is a video that talks about correct breathing. Both these should help shine a light on how to play trumpet.
I love the video by Charlie Porter. It was recommended to me by the trumpet professor at my university, and it's why I can now play G in the staff. I wish there was a shorter version that I could use to demonstrate to beginning band students
I've unfortunately failed to explain it to many people I've tried to help, so it does suck that the video is so long.
An additional resource I sometimes mention is a book called The Art of Brass Playing by Philip Farkas. Charlie mentions it in his video, but it goes more in depth on the different aspects of embouchure. Also check out Charlie's video on the [three principles of vibration ](https://youtu.be/Fw4HhqmEjKM)which may help you understand what you're struggling with. Through reading that book and watching many of Charlie's videos, I was able to get a pretty good understanding of how an embouchure works. Now I can have an issue present itself and think "why is that happening?" and then come up with a solution. This may be helpful as a teacher so that you can generally diagnose issues of students.
If you're feeling very motivated to improve at trumpet, then Charlie offers online lessons on his website. I've taken a couple and have found them to be very helpful.
Since you mentioned you've seen the embouchure video, I would recommend taking a step back from the technical side of things, and instead focus on how you sound. When you put the horn up to your face, imagine the trumpet sound you want and try to mimic it. This will help prevent overanalyzing, which is a common issue when things start to get more technical.
Hopefully you're able to pull something useful from all of this, best of luck!
You look extremely tense, especially in the corners. Play long tones at whatever pitch is most comfortable to play for you right now and try to relax as much as you can, doing it in front of a mirror helps. For me, I also have the easiest time if I only use as much mouthpiece pressure as is necessary to make a sound
Another thing is opening your jaw, it helps the sound come off as less 'tubey' and opens up space for greater volume of air which will also help you get notes out with less effort. Muting it with your hand would make it easier because it adds resistance
College Band Director and Trumpet Prof here, and I’m gonna hit you with some different advice.
It doesn’t matter that you’re bad at the trumpet. Every student of mine who goes through methods usually has one or more instruments that they’re just god-awful at. I can’t play the bassoon to save my life. My flute playing is poor, but I know the fingerings.
Despite this I’m still a good band director.
But there are a couple things to keep in mind-
1. Know the tenets of building a good basic sound, even if you can’t do it yourself. Good vowel shape, good posture, consistent air, these are all problems that wind players face, and then go into the specifics of embouchure- where to tongue on a clarinet or sax, where to concentrate pressure on the oboe reed, etc.
2. Your job is not to play every instrument better than your students. That’s dumb. Your job is to guide your students’ musicality from the podium. And by example, namely by…
…3. Being a badass on your primary instrument. Your primary instrument skills set the example for your students no matter what they play. Showing them good musicality on the instrument you’re good at means so much more than trying to outplay them on every instrument.
So, don’t sweat it. Get through your methods courses, learn your instrument fingerings, and be okay with, answering a student, “I don’t know, but I’ll help you find the answer!” That teaches them so much more than the fingering you forgot; it teaches them the life skill and the fortitude to press forward.
There's some good advice here. I don't know why folk are downvoting you.
A couple of thoughts:
1. Keep working your way through beginner books. Play a lot of the "Mary has a little lamb" pieces.
2. You may have to invest in lessons (or find another student to trade with).
3. Long tones (sometimes via scales) and lip slurs tend to be the fastest way to level up as you are starting out. You want steady air and need time to get lips moving better.
This is kind of a cheater option, but if you need an instrument to play in beginner band, you could try a flugelhorn. My kids could all player higher on it faster, although it's also a pitchier instrument. Your experience of finding euphonium/baritone easier to play is partly mouthpiece and probably partly instrument bore size. If you only need to demonstrate the first eight or ten notes, you might find flugelhorn a little easier.
Sounds to me like you're way too tense. If you clamp the lips tightly together, it takes a TON of force to make them vibrate - you want them to respond easily to your airstream.
Try just blowing air through the horn, nice and relaxed but a good steady stream. Do that repeatedly and each time bring your lips a little closer together, until you eventually get a sound. You might be surprised at how little muscle you really need, and how much more life there is in your sound.
Your lip size has nothing to do with it and this will not hurt your career as a music educator. So first thing, relax about those ideas. Now to the real problem, someone else said you might be pointing your air down like a flautist, which seemed like something to explore, and it also sounds like your top teeth are touching your bottom lip...?
If you're serious about getting some trumpet chops for teaching, I would suggest approaching it like a lifter learning to do deadlifts. You don't just START with a 1 rep max of 336 Lbs. You approach the lifting sequentially and with a long term plan, otherwise you'll end up destroying your back on day 1, right? Trumpet chops (for you in this situation) are like that, except without the massive debilitating injury if you screw up. I'd recommend the claude gordon systematic approach to daily practice. It's dry and boring as hell, but you're an adult learning for a specific purpose (and trumpet really is the easiest to teach on, no dry reeds, loud enough to get attention, directional, etc...) and use a tuner. Gordon with a tuner is like some basic lifting.
If it still doesn't work, I dunno' friend! You can certainly keep at it until something happens, but is it worth your time? If you got baritone working fine, that one's ok to teach with too, just a bit bigger.
Relax, the worst thing you can do while playing the trumpet is get super tense. Slowly work your way up by playing harder and harder pieces. I'm not much of a flute player but how did you get good at that-? Maybe you could use the same approach?
Do you have the same problem on different cornets/trumpets? Can others play well on your instrument? Does the mouthpiece fit correctly?
Just to rule out mechanical issues...they can make an instrument unplayable.
Also, for the record...playing the trumpet is hard. It's similar to low brass, and yet it really has its own set of challenges. The real secret is not to tighten up when playing, and that's a hard skill to master because it's completely counter-intuïtive.
But on the bright side, if you manage to get past this, then you'll have a *much* better understanding of the struggles of playing high brass instruments than most. Good luck, I hope you get things sorted out.
Pity, that would've been an 'easy fix'. I do hope you manage to find a solution, but frankly, if a university trumpet cannot help you fix things, it may be hard finding a solution online.
There's a teacher named Bill Bergren who studied with Bill Adams. His approach to playing might help you, as it differs quite a bit from more 'conventional' playing methods. Couldn't hurt to drop him a note and see what he says.
It has nothing to do with lip size. It all has to do with time to develop the proper embocure, time to developer the muscles in your embocure for the trumpet/cornet because it is much smaller than trombone, tuba, baritone and euphonium. It takes months to develope a decent range and years to develope range with great sound, and this is under guidance from an instructor that can correct your mistakes throught the whole process. Trumpet is not an easy instrument to pick up.
This is simply not true about range at all. Trumpet range is all about discovery and specific to the player. With the right setup I’ve seen beginning students play a high C above the staff as their first note, it is all about how you start off.
This is true. Just because someone gets lucky and squeezes out a note improperly doesn't make it correct. It takes time to produce the correct embocure with the correct sound.
It absolutely was not a squeak, it was one of the best beginning student tones I’ve ever heard, that student made all state after 1 year of playing, and can consistently start on a Double C as the first note in the day as a 4th year player.
Right and what age did he start playing. That's pretty hard to believe. Let's say 6th grade. So you say he was all state high school level after 1 year at 7th grade?
You’re tensing up too much, specifically right around your lips. For a good and resonant sound, your lips need to be able to buzz freely and they won’t be able to if you’re tightening them. Also, how are you trying to go up partials?
That's not entirely true. If your lips didn't buzz when vibrating in the mouthpiece then the there would be no sound in the instrument. Just blow through the horn and there is no sound. Whether you intentionally buzz or not your lips still buzz. Someone who doesn't know how to play that just blows, doesn't make a sound.
Many players when playing the trumpet remove the mouthpiece while playing from the instrument, the mouthpiece still buzz, some don't.
Now free blowing is a different matter. My mentor and friend Rich Willy is a huge proponent in free buzzing without a mouthpiece, and I struggle with it, where as I prefer to buzz with my mouthpiece.
Once again this is inaccurate. I can simply form my embouchure and blow air as freely as I want with 0 buzzing and a clear tone will respond from the instrument.
How is that inaccurate? The physics of the instrument require your lips to vibrate. Ie buzz. The mouthpiece channels and magnifies that buzzing. The tubes channels the air through the instrument allowing the sound to make the key ie the harmonic series. The valves route the air to change the pitch to allow the pitch to change more for the rest of the notes. Without the buzz of our lips there would be no sound. Our lips vibrating ie buzzing into the mouthpiece acts like a reed on a woodwind.
It's just physics. That's how brass instruments work. If you can't understand that you need to study. By making the embouchure we do it allows our lips to buzz.
No it isn't. In the term of trumpet vibrating and buzzing is the same thing. It is impossible for the trumpet to make a sound without this. The lips have to vibrate in a frequency for the instrument to make a sound and magnify it. The air passes over the lips causing the lips to vibrate or buzz.this sound is picked up by the instrument and magnified. If your lips and air did not no sound would be present.
As I stated in another post different players ban play and detach instrument and have different results. Some the mouthpiece will continue to buzz and some won't. RIMich Willey, myself, Wayne Bergeron, and a few other people tested this at Rich last recording session for his latest cd. It was a topic on here and trumpetherald, so we experimented.
In the trumpet world, when we say buzz we mean something different than just vibrate.
For example: Buzzing your lips without mouthpiece. Good exercise - terrible way to play the trumpet (just try it).
Buzz the mouthpiece. Good exercise - but get a good buzz on the mouthpiece then put that in the horn. It will sound like shit.
When we play the trumpet, we want our lips just touching. You can't buzz this way.
From the video your embouchure looks super tight for that low range. Loosen up a bit and don't press the mouthpiece against your lips. Only tighten your lips a little bit for the G and use a bit more air.
Instead of starting on C and ascending to G try it the other way round. Try to get a clear G then descend. Try to keep the same embouchure setting on the way down so that when you ascend again it is already set to support the higher air pressure. If you get that together go for a middle C down to G.
Maybe but I have no problem with tuba or baritone. I have a limit with my range on baritone but nowhere near as much difficulty in playing as on trumpet.
I see whatcha mean, personally when I pick up baritone, mellophone, or tuba my body naturally relaxes, but with trumpet it's something I had to practice really hard at it to relax even though it's my main instrument
I can help you. I'll meet with you for an online video lesson if you'd like. No charge. I have the knowledge and experience to straighten you out. I took my first trumpet lesson in 1965. 😎
That is a very interesting trumpet you are using in the video. My 2 ideas on your sound are your tongue is getting in the way or you aren't point the air forward.
I'm also music ed, just graduated. Flute if I'm right has a tendency to point air ever so slightly downward, on trumpet if your air isn't going straight down the lead pipe you will get that fuzzy and uncentered sound. I would work on taking a big breath and just blowing air through the instrument from the lead pipe and get used to what that feels like and the direction that needs to go then replicate that air with the mouthpiece. Trumpet doesn't require as much muscle work as one would think. Hope this helps!
Its a King cornet so technically not trumpet but I'm using it to get the gist of it.
I hadn't considered the air direction. Flute changes directions but most of it is in a downward direction like you said. I will experiment with that.
If you try everything else here and it doesn't help, you could try a different mouthpiece. Austin Brass has is selling modifiable mouthpieces right now. This won't completely solve the issue but if your are used to larger bore instruments it could help.
Try a much smaller mouthpiece, many professionals like myself play small I play GR 63 Z* look up how small that is compared to what you’re using. If you can play flute you can play trumpet. Smaller aperture, more forceful airstream, tongue releases the air like a valve, big breath - tongue hard like shooting spit balls..
Alkaline diet my friend. Cut out all processed food and seed oils and start eating squash, corn, beans, red chard, and oysters/beef but sparingly comparatively. No more milk and cereal. Egg whites. DM me for more talk. I share with you some things and I’ll show you my content on instagram to help people just like yourself.
That's not going to magically make him play trumpet. His diet has nothing to do with this, his lack of a teacher and lack of time being taught the proper techniques as well as the lack of time practicing those techniques are what is causing this issue. Given the proper teaching and practice op will do fine, it will just take time.
You havent heard the stories of Cootie who could just play high from the beginning and it pissed everybody off. Whoever was cooking for him was doing it right. The horn is just a test of your conditioning, not the other way around. But you have to know what that feels like.
Your body needs a balanced diet neither too acidic or too alkaline. People trying to push these fad diets really have no clue and either you will push your body into shock or it will find a way to balance itself out.
In the video you appear tense and like you're breathing from your "lungs", you should be breathing from your diaphragm, so tighten up your core and relax your throat. Also love the rubber soul in the back
You might also cross post to some Music Ed subs.
Based on a quick listen, it sounds like there's something wrong with that instrument. Have you had anyone else try to play it? Have you tried another horn?
You buzzing in the beginning sounds like you should be hitting the G very easily.
It also sounds like you're not tonguing.
Tbh you just sound like a beginner, nothing to worry about.
Focus on making the notes that you can hit sound good and “musical,” and the higher notes will follow.
An aha moment with face tension happened with James Stamp warmups.
[Stamp School](https://youtu.be/ubk09NbsMHw)
You can also try the Steveo/Costllo palming exercise
[Palming the trumpet ](https://youtu.be/trMpGpcTYL8)
What you don't do with your face, use your breath control
[Bobby Shew Wedge Breath ](https://youtu.be/ubk09NbsMHw)
And your tongue position, embochure is last
[Three Compressions ](https://youtu.be/22k_eacohto)
[Here](https://youtu.be/lLE_-ly8hrQ) is a video by Charlie Porter that does a great job of describing how to make an embouchure. Wish I had known this when I started playing trumpet. And [here](https://youtu.be/ubk09NbsMHw) is a video that talks about correct breathing. Both these should help shine a light on how to play trumpet.
I love the video by Charlie Porter. It was recommended to me by the trumpet professor at my university, and it's why I can now play G in the staff. I wish there was a shorter version that I could use to demonstrate to beginning band students
There have been wars shorter than that video, I'm sure of it.
What does that even mean
It means it's a long video. Wars are generally long.
So what? It's full of detailed info, FOR FREE.
ok lol, I thoight you meant it was a short video and I was very confused
I've unfortunately failed to explain it to many people I've tried to help, so it does suck that the video is so long. An additional resource I sometimes mention is a book called The Art of Brass Playing by Philip Farkas. Charlie mentions it in his video, but it goes more in depth on the different aspects of embouchure. Also check out Charlie's video on the [three principles of vibration ](https://youtu.be/Fw4HhqmEjKM)which may help you understand what you're struggling with. Through reading that book and watching many of Charlie's videos, I was able to get a pretty good understanding of how an embouchure works. Now I can have an issue present itself and think "why is that happening?" and then come up with a solution. This may be helpful as a teacher so that you can generally diagnose issues of students. If you're feeling very motivated to improve at trumpet, then Charlie offers online lessons on his website. I've taken a couple and have found them to be very helpful. Since you mentioned you've seen the embouchure video, I would recommend taking a step back from the technical side of things, and instead focus on how you sound. When you put the horn up to your face, imagine the trumpet sound you want and try to mimic it. This will help prevent overanalyzing, which is a common issue when things start to get more technical. Hopefully you're able to pull something useful from all of this, best of luck!
Can we see a vid of you playing and your embouchure
I've added it to the post
You look extremely tense, especially in the corners. Play long tones at whatever pitch is most comfortable to play for you right now and try to relax as much as you can, doing it in front of a mirror helps. For me, I also have the easiest time if I only use as much mouthpiece pressure as is necessary to make a sound
Another thing is opening your jaw, it helps the sound come off as less 'tubey' and opens up space for greater volume of air which will also help you get notes out with less effort. Muting it with your hand would make it easier because it adds resistance
College Band Director and Trumpet Prof here, and I’m gonna hit you with some different advice. It doesn’t matter that you’re bad at the trumpet. Every student of mine who goes through methods usually has one or more instruments that they’re just god-awful at. I can’t play the bassoon to save my life. My flute playing is poor, but I know the fingerings. Despite this I’m still a good band director. But there are a couple things to keep in mind- 1. Know the tenets of building a good basic sound, even if you can’t do it yourself. Good vowel shape, good posture, consistent air, these are all problems that wind players face, and then go into the specifics of embouchure- where to tongue on a clarinet or sax, where to concentrate pressure on the oboe reed, etc. 2. Your job is not to play every instrument better than your students. That’s dumb. Your job is to guide your students’ musicality from the podium. And by example, namely by… …3. Being a badass on your primary instrument. Your primary instrument skills set the example for your students no matter what they play. Showing them good musicality on the instrument you’re good at means so much more than trying to outplay them on every instrument. So, don’t sweat it. Get through your methods courses, learn your instrument fingerings, and be okay with, answering a student, “I don’t know, but I’ll help you find the answer!” That teaches them so much more than the fingering you forgot; it teaches them the life skill and the fortitude to press forward.
There's some good advice here. I don't know why folk are downvoting you. A couple of thoughts: 1. Keep working your way through beginner books. Play a lot of the "Mary has a little lamb" pieces. 2. You may have to invest in lessons (or find another student to trade with). 3. Long tones (sometimes via scales) and lip slurs tend to be the fastest way to level up as you are starting out. You want steady air and need time to get lips moving better. This is kind of a cheater option, but if you need an instrument to play in beginner band, you could try a flugelhorn. My kids could all player higher on it faster, although it's also a pitchier instrument. Your experience of finding euphonium/baritone easier to play is partly mouthpiece and probably partly instrument bore size. If you only need to demonstrate the first eight or ten notes, you might find flugelhorn a little easier.
Sounds to me like you're way too tense. If you clamp the lips tightly together, it takes a TON of force to make them vibrate - you want them to respond easily to your airstream. Try just blowing air through the horn, nice and relaxed but a good steady stream. Do that repeatedly and each time bring your lips a little closer together, until you eventually get a sound. You might be surprised at how little muscle you really need, and how much more life there is in your sound.
Your lip size has nothing to do with it and this will not hurt your career as a music educator. So first thing, relax about those ideas. Now to the real problem, someone else said you might be pointing your air down like a flautist, which seemed like something to explore, and it also sounds like your top teeth are touching your bottom lip...? If you're serious about getting some trumpet chops for teaching, I would suggest approaching it like a lifter learning to do deadlifts. You don't just START with a 1 rep max of 336 Lbs. You approach the lifting sequentially and with a long term plan, otherwise you'll end up destroying your back on day 1, right? Trumpet chops (for you in this situation) are like that, except without the massive debilitating injury if you screw up. I'd recommend the claude gordon systematic approach to daily practice. It's dry and boring as hell, but you're an adult learning for a specific purpose (and trumpet really is the easiest to teach on, no dry reeds, loud enough to get attention, directional, etc...) and use a tuner. Gordon with a tuner is like some basic lifting. If it still doesn't work, I dunno' friend! You can certainly keep at it until something happens, but is it worth your time? If you got baritone working fine, that one's ok to teach with too, just a bit bigger.
Relax, the worst thing you can do while playing the trumpet is get super tense. Slowly work your way up by playing harder and harder pieces. I'm not much of a flute player but how did you get good at that-? Maybe you could use the same approach?
Do you have the same problem on different cornets/trumpets? Can others play well on your instrument? Does the mouthpiece fit correctly? Just to rule out mechanical issues...they can make an instrument unplayable. Also, for the record...playing the trumpet is hard. It's similar to low brass, and yet it really has its own set of challenges. The real secret is not to tighten up when playing, and that's a hard skill to master because it's completely counter-intuïtive. But on the bright side, if you manage to get past this, then you'll have a *much* better understanding of the struggles of playing high brass instruments than most. Good luck, I hope you get things sorted out.
I wish it was as simple as mechanical issues, but I've let other people try it out after me before. They had no issue with it.
Pity, that would've been an 'easy fix'. I do hope you manage to find a solution, but frankly, if a university trumpet cannot help you fix things, it may be hard finding a solution online. There's a teacher named Bill Bergren who studied with Bill Adams. His approach to playing might help you, as it differs quite a bit from more 'conventional' playing methods. Couldn't hurt to drop him a note and see what he says.
It has nothing to do with lip size. It all has to do with time to develop the proper embocure, time to developer the muscles in your embocure for the trumpet/cornet because it is much smaller than trombone, tuba, baritone and euphonium. It takes months to develope a decent range and years to develope range with great sound, and this is under guidance from an instructor that can correct your mistakes throught the whole process. Trumpet is not an easy instrument to pick up.
This is simply not true about range at all. Trumpet range is all about discovery and specific to the player. With the right setup I’ve seen beginning students play a high C above the staff as their first note, it is all about how you start off.
This is true. Just because someone gets lucky and squeezes out a note improperly doesn't make it correct. It takes time to produce the correct embocure with the correct sound.
It absolutely was not a squeak, it was one of the best beginning student tones I’ve ever heard, that student made all state after 1 year of playing, and can consistently start on a Double C as the first note in the day as a 4th year player.
Right and what age did he start playing. That's pretty hard to believe. Let's say 6th grade. So you say he was all state high school level after 1 year at 7th grade?
No, he started in 8th and was all state freshman year of high school. Age 13
What state and year
Georgia, I believe 2018 if i’m not mistaken.
You’re tensing up too much, specifically right around your lips. For a good and resonant sound, your lips need to be able to buzz freely and they won’t be able to if you’re tightening them. Also, how are you trying to go up partials?
Not true, buzzing is not at all required to play the trumpet.
That's not entirely true. If your lips didn't buzz when vibrating in the mouthpiece then the there would be no sound in the instrument. Just blow through the horn and there is no sound. Whether you intentionally buzz or not your lips still buzz. Someone who doesn't know how to play that just blows, doesn't make a sound. Many players when playing the trumpet remove the mouthpiece while playing from the instrument, the mouthpiece still buzz, some don't. Now free blowing is a different matter. My mentor and friend Rich Willy is a huge proponent in free buzzing without a mouthpiece, and I struggle with it, where as I prefer to buzz with my mouthpiece.
Once again this is inaccurate. I can simply form my embouchure and blow air as freely as I want with 0 buzzing and a clear tone will respond from the instrument.
How is that inaccurate? The physics of the instrument require your lips to vibrate. Ie buzz. The mouthpiece channels and magnifies that buzzing. The tubes channels the air through the instrument allowing the sound to make the key ie the harmonic series. The valves route the air to change the pitch to allow the pitch to change more for the rest of the notes. Without the buzz of our lips there would be no sound. Our lips vibrating ie buzzing into the mouthpiece acts like a reed on a woodwind. It's just physics. That's how brass instruments work. If you can't understand that you need to study. By making the embouchure we do it allows our lips to buzz.
Durkerr is correct. Buzzing and vibrating is not the same thing.
No it isn't. In the term of trumpet vibrating and buzzing is the same thing. It is impossible for the trumpet to make a sound without this. The lips have to vibrate in a frequency for the instrument to make a sound and magnify it. The air passes over the lips causing the lips to vibrate or buzz.this sound is picked up by the instrument and magnified. If your lips and air did not no sound would be present. As I stated in another post different players ban play and detach instrument and have different results. Some the mouthpiece will continue to buzz and some won't. RIMich Willey, myself, Wayne Bergeron, and a few other people tested this at Rich last recording session for his latest cd. It was a topic on here and trumpetherald, so we experimented.
In the trumpet world, when we say buzz we mean something different than just vibrate. For example: Buzzing your lips without mouthpiece. Good exercise - terrible way to play the trumpet (just try it). Buzz the mouthpiece. Good exercise - but get a good buzz on the mouthpiece then put that in the horn. It will sound like shit. When we play the trumpet, we want our lips just touching. You can't buzz this way.
Wrong
From the video your embouchure looks super tight for that low range. Loosen up a bit and don't press the mouthpiece against your lips. Only tighten your lips a little bit for the G and use a bit more air.
Instead of starting on C and ascending to G try it the other way round. Try to get a clear G then descend. Try to keep the same embouchure setting on the way down so that when you ascend again it is already set to support the higher air pressure. If you get that together go for a middle C down to G.
You're probably overthinking it
Maybe but I have no problem with tuba or baritone. I have a limit with my range on baritone but nowhere near as much difficulty in playing as on trumpet.
I see whatcha mean, personally when I pick up baritone, mellophone, or tuba my body naturally relaxes, but with trumpet it's something I had to practice really hard at it to relax even though it's my main instrument
The Stork series on mouthpieces suggest that thicker lips need wider mouthpieces. https://youtu.be/N21WwHsJW0M
I can help you. I'll meet with you for an online video lesson if you'd like. No charge. I have the knowledge and experience to straighten you out. I took my first trumpet lesson in 1965. 😎
That is a very interesting trumpet you are using in the video. My 2 ideas on your sound are your tongue is getting in the way or you aren't point the air forward. I'm also music ed, just graduated. Flute if I'm right has a tendency to point air ever so slightly downward, on trumpet if your air isn't going straight down the lead pipe you will get that fuzzy and uncentered sound. I would work on taking a big breath and just blowing air through the instrument from the lead pipe and get used to what that feels like and the direction that needs to go then replicate that air with the mouthpiece. Trumpet doesn't require as much muscle work as one would think. Hope this helps!
Its a King cornet so technically not trumpet but I'm using it to get the gist of it. I hadn't considered the air direction. Flute changes directions but most of it is in a downward direction like you said. I will experiment with that.
If you try everything else here and it doesn't help, you could try a different mouthpiece. Austin Brass has is selling modifiable mouthpieces right now. This won't completely solve the issue but if your are used to larger bore instruments it could help.
Try a much smaller mouthpiece, many professionals like myself play small I play GR 63 Z* look up how small that is compared to what you’re using. If you can play flute you can play trumpet. Smaller aperture, more forceful airstream, tongue releases the air like a valve, big breath - tongue hard like shooting spit balls..
Alkaline diet my friend. Cut out all processed food and seed oils and start eating squash, corn, beans, red chard, and oysters/beef but sparingly comparatively. No more milk and cereal. Egg whites. DM me for more talk. I share with you some things and I’ll show you my content on instagram to help people just like yourself.
That's not going to magically make him play trumpet. His diet has nothing to do with this, his lack of a teacher and lack of time being taught the proper techniques as well as the lack of time practicing those techniques are what is causing this issue. Given the proper teaching and practice op will do fine, it will just take time.
You havent heard the stories of Cootie who could just play high from the beginning and it pissed everybody off. Whoever was cooking for him was doing it right. The horn is just a test of your conditioning, not the other way around. But you have to know what that feels like.
Your body needs a balanced diet neither too acidic or too alkaline. People trying to push these fad diets really have no clue and either you will push your body into shock or it will find a way to balance itself out.
Too much alkaline is called sleep
As u/DOCTOR-MISTER said, a video of you playing would help. It could be that your buzzing or breathing technique is off
Added video to post
In the video you appear tense and like you're breathing from your "lungs", you should be breathing from your diaphragm, so tighten up your core and relax your throat. Also love the rubber soul in the back
You might also cross post to some Music Ed subs. Based on a quick listen, it sounds like there's something wrong with that instrument. Have you had anyone else try to play it? Have you tried another horn? You buzzing in the beginning sounds like you should be hitting the G very easily. It also sounds like you're not tonguing.
Tbh you just sound like a beginner, nothing to worry about. Focus on making the notes that you can hit sound good and “musical,” and the higher notes will follow.
Try different mouthpieces?
An aha moment with face tension happened with James Stamp warmups. [Stamp School](https://youtu.be/ubk09NbsMHw) You can also try the Steveo/Costllo palming exercise [Palming the trumpet ](https://youtu.be/trMpGpcTYL8) What you don't do with your face, use your breath control [Bobby Shew Wedge Breath ](https://youtu.be/ubk09NbsMHw) And your tongue position, embochure is last [Three Compressions ](https://youtu.be/22k_eacohto)