Baal Tekiah's Embouchure.

The embouchure is the manner in which the lips and tongue are applied to such a mouthpiece. The word derives from the French embouchure (to put into the mouth). You must have the proper embouchure in order to sound the Shofar. Many Shofar sounders are not brass instrumentalists and do not know the techniques developed over the past three hundred years. If Shofar repairing requires the Shofar Sounder to change his embouchure, then we find another factor to consider whether the Shofar changes its tone. If, in fact, the repaired Shofar required a change in embouchure, the likelihood is that the Shofar's sound changes.

To form an embouchure two groups of muscles are at work. The first are those muscles that bring our lips to an extreme pucker, such as would be used to whistle--the muscles around our lips. The second group are those which bring our lips to a smile--the cheek muscles. Either group can form a brass embouchure of sorts.

Muscles can only contract or relax. When you pucker your lips, the cheek muscles relax and the lips contract. When you smile, your cheek muscles contract while the lips relax.

To form a correct brass embouchure the actions of smiling and puckering must be combined and balanced in sort of a "tug-of-war." Too much puckering can lead to a very soggy tone, while too much smiling will lead to a very bright tone with little endurance.

If the embouchure changes it may affect one or a combination of: 1) the angle of mouthpiece placement; 2) wet (moist) or dry lips; 3) amount of lip opening through which the air passes (the lip aperture); 4) the angle of the chin; and 5) the amount of mouthpiece pressure in playing the high or low notes. (Farkas, Philip, 1962; Arban, 1908; and Whitner, 1997).

Presenting ideas on Shofar playing techniques fill a need in the area about which there is very sparse material in English. This article introduces some brass instrumentalist techniques to fit the aerophone, called a Shofar. Thin of orchestrating these techniques in to your repertoire so that you can give it all you have to fulfill the mitzvah of hearing the Shofar on Rosh Hashanah (Shulchan Aruch 585:3)