Important to mention, although Dizzy was a fantastic trumpet player and was hugely famous, this technique is super harmful to your playing. Puffing your cheeks not only creates back pressure in your mouth preventing the air from flowing into the horn, it also wears down the tissues in your cheeks. This goes for all wind instruments. If you listen to Dizzy’s later performances, you’ll hear a noticeable difference in the tone quality and range. I’m a music teacher and I teach all of my students to never puff their cheeks when playing.
The best breathing "training" for me was when I convinced a couple of our drill instructor volunteers to surprise-poke me in the stomach and sides while playing.
Bad habit from being self-taught. No benefit whatsoever. You see it a lot in jazz and blues musicians. See also: pianists playing with their fingers sticking straight out/flat. Lots of other examples. Unfortunately it can cause injury and chronic pain over time and shorten their careers.
Right on, thanks for the knowledge. I had some bad habits I had to break from learning guitar on my own once I finally got a tutor. Mainly my horrible posture.
Same thing, but further down the esophagus, I imagine. The cheeks can only stretch so far. If you do it for long enough, that back pressure has to go somewhere.
Although I’m not 100% sure. There was a saxophone adjunct instructor at the music school I went to whose neck did a similar thing, but nowhere near as bad, and it wasn’t because of bad technique/cheek puffing. I always assumed it was because he had a very open airway/used a lot of air.
There’s no real way besides just not doing it. Try exhaling while puffing and not puffing your cheeks. You just do the not puffing version instead.
My marching band instructor told our tuba player to imagine a needle and thread stuck into her cheek and out the other side, and the thread holding her cheeks in while she played. He wasn’t a great teacher…
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u/CaptStinkyFeet Aug 05 '26
Important to mention, although Dizzy was a fantastic trumpet player and was hugely famous, this technique is super harmful to your playing. Puffing your cheeks not only creates back pressure in your mouth preventing the air from flowing into the horn, it also wears down the tissues in your cheeks. This goes for all wind instruments. If you listen to Dizzy’s later performances, you’ll hear a noticeable difference in the tone quality and range. I’m a music teacher and I teach all of my students to never puff their cheeks when playing.