Hi I am 15 and have been playing trumpet for nearly 3 years. I am an average player. My problem is my endurance, as i can only play 15 - 20 minutes practice before my cheek muscles hurt too much, and i cannot blow any more. My trumpet teacher says i need to fix my embouchure, and then my my endurance will get better, because at the moment i am letting the lips pour out the side. Does anyone know how i can fix my problem? because changing my embouchure is a problem since ive started finding a nice tone, i dont want to waste all that hard work.

If your teacher told you to fix your embrochure why don't you ask him how to fix it?

practice practice practice !!! ive been playing trumpet since yr 4 (im in yr 9 now) and all throughout that time the amount i could practice has varied. atm i can only practice full on for about 30min but at the end of last yr i was playing for 1 1/2 hours, simply because i was practicing a lot more

Yeah, you just need to practice alot more. When your practicing play for about 10-15 minutes then rest for 5-10 minutes and repeat until your tired. This helps build up lip muscle.

Don't worry about "losing all the hard work". It won't be worth anything if you don't get your chops in order, and soon.

Check the other thread about this same subject.

The mouthpiece is supposed to rest on the fatty center of the upper lip while the lower lip does the bulk of the "movement". The upper lip will work in concert with the lower lip, but the mouthpiece "resting" there is a key point.

The embouchure (check your spelling) muscles need to be strengthened. Like any athlete, trumpet players depend on specific muscles wihtin specific muscle groups functioning together like a fined-tuned, high-precision machine. You have to train those muscles just like any other athlete does.

Try this...get a towel and fold it over several times. Sit on the front edge of a chair with the towel on the floor between your feet. Take your mouthpice and invert it, shank first, between your lips and hold the mouhtpiece suspended over the towel. Tighten the corners of your mouth into a smile without baring your teeth and without dropping the mouthpiece. DO NOT USE YOUR TEETH BENEATH YOUR LIPS TO HOLD IT!

In a couple of seconds, you will start to drool through the mouthpiece. That's okay - that's why we started with the towel. Time yourself and hold the mouthpiece suspended like that for as long as you can. Are the muscles burning? Then you're getting it right. When you can't hold it any longer, force yourself to hold it for two more seconds.

Take the mouthpiece out and relax your lips. Do the "horse-flutter" to relax the muscles. Stretch and relax the muscles. Repeat these relaxing techniques for as long as you held the mouthpiece. Now, get your head back over that towel and hold that mouthpiece again. Hold it for as close to as long as you did the first time. Always add two-three seconds to the "end". We call this "going to fail". That means, keep going until the muscles fail and won't work anymore.

This will boost the strength of your embouchure like you wouldn't believe. After you have done this for a couple of weeks, always increasing you time and building from three to five repetitions, start doing repeated contraction/relaxation of the embouchure, like doing a lip trill, while holding the mouthpiece. This REALLY boosts the embouchure strength.

Hope this is helpful. Remember, if you don't love it, you'll never really be any good at it. If you do, then you can't help but add to the legacy of true trumpet greats in some way.