Sore Lips

[Bryan Kendall]

Sore Lips

I have Eb - Sopranino and C - Soprano saxophones. I find that after playing for a few hours my lip is sore….in the area of the underside of my bottom lip. Why?

However, I find that when I play my alto, tenor and baritone saxophones I never have a sore lip. I spoke to my dentist about this and he grinded my teeth smooth so that there are no sharp edges or points sticking up….so sharp teeth is not causing the problem.

I have heard of the use of cigarette papers (Saliva doesn´t disintegrate them.) under the lips to prevent this from occuring.

What do you think?

[MitchP]

Simply, you are biting into your lower lip from too much pressure. The soprano requires a strong embouchure. Try playing long tones focussing on supporting your lower lip over the teeth from the corner/side muscles of your mouth. When you start to bite, stop and rest. Biting into the lower lip is not desireable. If you still bite after building up your embouchure, try a lip cusion over your bottom teeth. You can use cigarette paper as you said or floral tape from a florist. This is tape they use to wrap stems of flowers, make sure you get white so it doesn't look funny unless you like green teeth. You can also have youir dentist make you something out of plastic or other dental material. It's basically a smaller version of a nighttime mouthgaurd.

[Razzy]

Ditto on the above. What's happening is that your embouchure is strong enough on alto where you it is easy to play alto and the other horns correctly, but not quite there for soprano, which requires more strength and firmness. Soprano also needs a lot more air support to keep the muscles working.

(Though this may be seen a bit crass given the current world situation, it's otherwise very appropriate) Think "air support" like in a war campaign, and "ground forces" are your embouchure muscles. Without the tactical air support the ground forces have to work a lot harder to achieve the desired result and will fatigue easily, and sometimes fall into the hands of the enemy (the teeth)!

So yea. Do Larry Teal's embouchure exercises nightly, after your practice sessions, and take a break once every two weeks to let the muscles build back up. Eventually the muscles will catch up to your level of practice (1 hour on soprano per day should be adequate, in addition to or overlapping your regular routine) and you'll have chops of steel! Also I'd advise playing a medium setup: medium opening on the mouthpiece, medium strength reed.

[Jazzophone]

Larry Teal's embouchure exercises?

[saxshooter]

Matching pair, you REALLY had your dentist grind your teeth flat because you thought it was affecting your playing? Wow. That's dedication...

Your embrochure is working a lot harder on keeping the intonation on soprano... notice if you let your embrochure "loose" the pitch just goes.

Branford Marsalis used to play 4 1/2 Hemkes on his soprano with a pretty small chambered mouthpiece. He said his lips swelled up like balloons at first, but then again, check out his soprano tone. Rich!