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Learn About a Crazy Concoction that May Improve the Grip on the Mouthpiece

Body + Mind + Spirit = Mastery. Now available is a collection of excerpts from some of the most popular episodes of the Trumpet Dynamics podcast featuring the likes of Chris Coletti, Sergei Nakariakov, Manny Laureano, and more.

It's a FREE download available right now on brassmastery.com!

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Transcript
Speaker:

All right, I'm here with Matt Fatale, man.

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:

How's it going?

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:

Speaker 2: It's going good.

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:

Speaker: We're here at the ITG,

and you have a new product,

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:

and I want to talk about it.

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:

It's really cool, and it's

it's, my understanding of it

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:

is like how powerful it is.

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:

Gymnasts put chalk or tape on their hands

and it gives them a better grip on the the

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bars where they're doing their things and

somehow you've come up with a concoction.

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:

The

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Speaker 2: equivalent for brass, yeah.

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Speaker: The equivalent for brass.

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Tell us about it, buddy.

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Speaker 2: It all started

with a crazy idea.

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If anybody's heard the Louis

Primatune, The Lip, it's actually

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:

referenced from long, long ago, this

magical what's the secret of the lip?

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Why does he play the high notes?

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And it's because he rubs a little high

note grease on his mouthpiece every night.

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And that's not where that idea came

from, but it's looking back, it's funny,

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that was already a thing, that's now

70 years ago or something like that.

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:

I, don't quote me on the date

of that tune, but I think it was

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from the, he was singing in the

50s, so it's definitely that old.

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But I thought, a few years ago, I was

sitting with a buddy of mine that's an

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amazing lead player named Mark Oates.

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Sorry Mark for name dropping you if

you're listening, but he's just amazing.

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He's got it all.

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He's got it all worked out.

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He's just the guy that gets the job done.

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So I was analyzing him and

saying, why do you have a limit?

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Why, what's your weakness?

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And the answer was rhetorical

because he's doing everything right.

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It's the seal.

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It's the connection to the mouthpiece.

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That's where everything

goes out the window.

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If you start getting tired, your

facial muscles start getting tired.

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Your lips start spreading.

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Speaker: So by seal you're referring

to the actual lips on the mouthpiece.

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And, The connection to the mouthpiece.

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The connection to the mouthpiece.

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Air or maybe saliva comes

out of the mouthpiece.

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Describe the problem with that.

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In a perfect

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Speaker 2: system, from diaphragm to

bell, that's the only weakness in this

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perfect system of air, and if all the

fundamentals are there, and you're

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doing everything right, supported right,

you don't have any tension, and you've

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got good embouchure, and you've worked

on trumpet, and everything's there,

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that's the weakest thing, because When

we start to get fatigued, this is,

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I'm not a doctor, I don't, I didn't

go to school for music or anything.

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We start to get fatigued, and the

muscles get tired, and you have to work,

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and you have to work harder, you have

to work harder to get that keep that

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shape, pushing all this air through.

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You're gonna edit this into

swimming, so do you want to?

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No, just keep

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Speaker: going.

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You

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Speaker 2: have to work harder to to keep

that shape and eventually the muscles

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are just gonna give out and or you're

gonna start getting inflammation or,

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or the lip, the tissue can become raw.

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For whatever reason, the lips spreading

is what is gonna cause that deformity and

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you're gonna lose the vibration, whether

it's a bad sound now or no sound at all.

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So I was like how can we fix that?

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We all know that you clean your

mouthpiece is clean, you instantly

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play better, it feels more comfortable,

it's it might not last very long.

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Speaker: Can you define lip spreading?

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Speaker 2: I could be wrong about

my understanding of this, but my

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understanding is that, you're forming an

embouchure, and you're putting this air

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through, and You have to struggle to keep

that shape and keep that that squeeze, as

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it were, as you're putting air through.

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Speaker: You can't keep the

muscles fully functioning.

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Yeah, when there's

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Speaker 2: compression.

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Because of fatigue?

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This is like a, this is like a slit

in the side of this compression

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chamber that, Eventually air will

start blowing out of it, or the sides

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of that chamber will start opening

up for it to tear and open up.

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And that's it's not a leak exactly,

you won't necessarily have air coming

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out, but it's starting to spread open

and you lose that, that vibrating

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surface presented to the air.

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I said, I'm gonna, I'm

going to solve this.

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And this is three years ago.

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And Mark was like, if only there was

some sticky stuff you could put on the

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mouthpiece and instantly, I've got a

triple C or whatever, and it's funny.

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So I said, you joke, but

I'm going to figure it out.

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And I tried everything.

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I tried everything under the sun.

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I'm assuming it must've been done.

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People, it's no, it's not a

new concept that grip is king.

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Speaker: Of course.

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Speaker 2: So essentially I'm taking

the clean mouthpiece and putting the

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only thing I've discovered on earth so

far That actually improves the grip for

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a trumpet player on that mouthpiece.

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Do you want me to talk

about the discovery?

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Speaker: Can you tell, yeah, so

let's talk about the discovery and

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as much as you're comfortable or

yeah, I'll say actual ingredients.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, I'll tell you

the actual, so the ingredient, so I,

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the discovery came, and I'm not gonna

get into what exactly it was, but

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the discovery came when I had this

resin, toxic kind of waste on my hand.

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It was just like some grease

essentially on my hand and I

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should have been wearing gloves.

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And so I'm washing my

hands with this solvent.

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And I can say some of these things

because we actually two, no, three

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days ago, now we filed a patent for

this formulation for the application

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method for application methods in a wide

array of other industries and stuff.

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It's really broad and we're

really confident in that.

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And it was really hard and crazy.

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But that's how serious we are about it.

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We're, it's not just

like some snake oil crap.

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Cause I spent I'll just say

way too much money on just a

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piece of paper essentially.

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But that's what you gotta do.

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It was a solvent and I was trying to get

this stuff off my hands and it was gone.

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Like you couldn't see

it on your hands at all.

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It was gone, but it still was there and

it still was like this weird surface.

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And so I've got this stuff on

my hands and I've washed it a

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few times now with this solvent.

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And it just remained and I'm like,

geez, I should have worn gloves.

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And I was like upset.

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And then all of a sudden it hit me like

a ton of bricks and I get goosebumps

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almost every time I tell the story.

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I'm literally going to try not

to get goosebumps now, but it

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hit me like a ton of bricks.

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And I went, Oh my God, this

is about nine months ago.

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I went, that is it.

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If ever there's something I want my chops

to feel like every second of every day,

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it's this feeling on my fingers right now.

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And I went, I called markup.

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I've solved it.

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I've done it.

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We're going to, we're going to be rich,

we've solved trumpet, and he's great.

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So except it's a toxic substance.

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It smells really bad and it's

alcohol and all this stuff.

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You can't just sell it

to kids, or whatever.

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And I was like you bring

up a very good point.

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So I think if anybody went this far

ever with an idea like this is the

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point at which it goes, Oh yeah,

I had a great idea, but it's just

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not possible to bring to market.

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And so I set out to find an alternative

material and source material.

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That is skin safe and through the

properties of what it is, I was able to go

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through lots of plants and I experimented

with other, pine resin and other things

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already in the adhesive industry.

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And the only thing that works is hemp.

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And we're fortunate that in 2018,

industrial hemp became accessible to

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smaller businesses with the Farm Bill Act.

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And maybe that's the only reason

this hasn't been done before.

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Who knows?

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But it hasn't been done

thousands of years of trumpet.

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There

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Speaker: wasn't a need for it.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker: Because the trumpet wasn't

a commercial product until recently

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in the last couple of hundred years.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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It wasn't brought yeah.

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And then the system already works.

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We're improving other and adding on to it.

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But so we did the first prototype testing.

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And it's really been a challenge.

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We've gone through we

started at version 1.

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0 which was just this

gunk dissolved in alcohol.

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And it worked and immediately

slotting felt better.

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I felt like I was using less

energy, something like that.

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But I'm just one guy.

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I'm biased as the inventor, of course.

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I got I'm gonna just give him a

shout out, cause I love Austin

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Custom Brass, but Josh McDonald,

I ran into him on a big band gig.

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Didn't even know he lived

in the same area as me.

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I'm just kidding.

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And I had him sign an NDA and confided

in him this, cause I was like, I

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need somebody that knows something

about the industry to tell me whether

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this is like snake oil or something

that people would be interested in.

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And he helped me as much as he could,

I tried to get him to buy in and

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stuff and he's just a good friend.

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And he was the first beta

tester besides myself.

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Okay.

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And he went yeah man, I dig it.

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I think you got something

here, keep working on it.

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And he encouraged me to, I think

you can get this done before ITG.

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And so that was my, the

goal I set out with.

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This is nine months ago and we're here

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Speaker: in almost June 24th.

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So this is like October.

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Yeah it's the date, the timestamps

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Speaker 2: on the text messages of the

first oh my gosh, I've done it to people.

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I think it was like November 8th

when I really had the discovery.

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And so sometime around

then, and then It's crazy.

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I also have, I was, I have dialogue.

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I developed the brand before I even

made this discovery as like a project.

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I've got an army trumpet player, Mitchell

Dunham, a really great trumpet player.

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He, now he's out in Kansas.

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He's on video going try

Maffetal's MF lip grip.

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It's going to blah, blah.

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And it was before it was ever reality.

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So we've done from 1.

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0 all the way up to 4.

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2 going decimal points for each

significant change in the formula

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and stuff like that to find the

right strain of flour with the right

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terpene profile and resin, properties.

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And it's essentially, it's hard

to find sticky hemp because hemp

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is not the same as marijuana

that's used, for THC properties.

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So it's not as sticky because

it doesn't have all of those

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other cannabinoids in it.

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And so it's been tough.

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We've refined it.

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This It was really scary.

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We, I'm like three months behind on my

mortgage because everything went into

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this, but I believed in it that much

had about 15, like dozen to 15 testers

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with signed confidentiality agreements

that were really testing generally

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from, some of my pals that are just,

regular old trumpet players, that are

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freelancers to some of the world's

greatest have tested and give me feedback.

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It's not for everybody, but 70 percent

of everyone I could comfortably say that

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goes, I think you got something here.

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We're here and we basically our pitch

has been, you're not going to believe

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anything I have to say, so take this

card and just read it and come back

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and I'll, and then you can, you can

call me out on my bluff, or whatever.

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What's

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Speaker: been the reaction

or response here at the

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Speaker 2: conference?

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It's pretty amazing, actually.

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So we sold out the first day.

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We didn't have, I won't say how many

units, but we had what we thought

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we could do if we just did okay.

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And we sold out of that pretty quickly.

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We had another shipment come

in the following day early.

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We thought we were going to

be out for another 24 hours.

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So then we tripled sales

yesterday, day two.

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Today I'm actually, I don't

know if Yeah, I should ask,

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but it's a clean environment.

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It's a clean process, but I'm

actually setting up a lab here.

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Some, maybe not here in the hotel, maybe

somewhere outside the hotel or whatever.

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It's nothing, there's nothing crazy

toxic going on or anything, but I have

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to make more right now because we're

about to, we're about to sell out.

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A few people have been like no.

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And we're confident enough in

it that I'm like, look, try

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this in a lot of different ways.

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Try this for, and I'm just giving bottles

out saying, you're not a believer.

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Take this and analyze it.

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It's free to you.

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See if, what can you tell me about

why it doesn't work for you to,

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because it, I'm so sure of it.

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And until the, like yesterday I was still

looking in the mirror going ah, you're an

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imposter, you're selling this fake stuff.

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But I'm like, the only thing I know and

I'm sure about in life is trumpet playing.

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And so I'm like, I can't be

this wrong about being so sure.

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We.

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Real quick, I know we're limited on

time, but this morning early when we were

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opening up, we had this guy come in, and

I don't think he'd mind me telling the

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story because he's pretty open about it.

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Go for it.

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He got bit by a dog in the face way

back when, sometime before the 90s, and

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has still been practicing every single

day trying to deal with this problem.

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And he plays.

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And he's got a really unstable visible

spasm when he engages his embouchure.

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Really?

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And it affects his tone, and

he struggles to play a high C

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with any kind of stable tone.

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Sure.

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And he's you think this will help me?

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I was like, I don't know, cause this is

like something we've never done before.

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But it should enhance your grip,

because that's just physics.

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So if that helps you,

a little more comfort.

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Long story short.

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Instantaneously.

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Instantly with this on the mouthpiece.

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He had a more stable tone.

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It was just like boom.

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There was no question about it.

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Then I'm like, okay,

maybe this is in my head.

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It's biased or a placebo effect for him.

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He plays all the way up to high C.

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And he was playing a C.

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There was like a little

tremble like twice in the C.

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But before it was like, like that.

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This was just, there's the high C.

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Then the D.

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Then the E came out.

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And we're just like looking at this ah.

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And he bought two of the big bottles.

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And I'm like.

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If nothing else, if it gives him 1

percent more comfort on this journey and

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this struggle, lifelong struggle he's

still he's still working on trumpet,

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he's still getting better, he had to

come back and everything it's cool.

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That's the gist of it.

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The big

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Speaker: takeaway for me is if you want a

free bottle, just say it's not working for

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me, and Matt will give you a free bottle.

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Speaker 2: So we said that like we made

some copies for a friend over here another

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one of the vendors at FedEx you you were

the one that you organized the deal as

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it were, we need 40 copies of this thing.

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And they were like, how much do I owe you?

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I was like, just come

by and buy some product.

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And then they were just

coming over and I was like no.

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Don't buy any product.

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Don't buy any products.

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We're about to run out.

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So we can't give it away free

to everybody for that reason.

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But yeah, if you I'm

good BS detector though.

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So You can come try.

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Sure, come try and pretend

that you don't like it.

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And I'll probably just tell you

it doesn't matter because you're

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just missing it in this case.

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Because it's physics.

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A baseball player wears gloves

because he puts more power into

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the ball with less energy output

and that is a fact of physics.

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There's no arguing it.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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So the same should apply that if

you have If you're more set and you

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have to work less to remain set,

you're saving energy in the face.

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And it's just, you feel

it after several hours.

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Speaker: So what's the web address?

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Speaker 2: It's lipgrip.

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us and it's super official.

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I feel like Mazda dot, DE

or something, one of those.

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But because we're an American business

and it's a very real product, we

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were able to get the dot us domain.

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And that's That's it, Lipcrip.

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us, patent pending sorry, anybody that's

been, any spies at the booth picking up a

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bottle, go ahead, dissect it, do whatever

you want with it, but we'll let you, we'll

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let you sell it for super, super cheap.

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We're selling it super cheap, it's

eight bucks for like a hundred drops,

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and I'm the inventor and I only use two

or three drops a couple times a week.

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Okay.

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Because I only use it when I really

just need a little extra help,

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I need a little extra support.

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I'm going to be smacking lots of high

notes or I have two gigs in one day and I

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need to really be on my game the next day.

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I'll use it that whole

previous day, save energy.

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But the lingering feeling from just

using it semi regularly, there hasn't

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been a day since I started using

it that my chops don't feel great.

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Speaker: Do you think this would

be applicable for low brass players

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with the bigger mouthpieces?

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Speaker 2: I know for a

fact it'll work on horn.

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That's a smaller mouthpiece.

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I've had only a couple trombone testers.

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I've had one tuba tester yesterday

that has to get back to me.

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He's one of the guys from the

brass, one of the brass quintets.

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I wouldn't make any claims in the other

brass areas because we've had to focus

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on what I know and what I can communicate

with the testers about, so I wouldn't make

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any claims for these other instruments.

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I'm sure without a doubt, it does

something because grip matters

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for those instruments as well.

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Of course, but there might be some

opposite benefits to trumpet players

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for a tuba player or something

where they're, it helps them.

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Somehow with their overtone series

and the upper register or whatever,

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when they, I don't understand enough

about a truck, a two bar amateur to,

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to make claims there, but we're going

to go to these other conferences and

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probably it won't be from a strong

we're really confident with sales here.

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It won't be from that strong

sales confidence stance.

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It'll be more research and development.

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Hey, we'll give you a free bottle.

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Just give us some honest feedback

on this for those other instruments.

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But.

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I'm certain that it will be beneficial to

some, almost undoubtedly, for those other

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Speaker: instruments.

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Speaker 2: With the money we it looks

like we're gonna make off this, our plan

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is not to like, like I make jokes about

having a jazz yacht from this, which if

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I am ever a millionaire, I will have a

yacht with live jazz music everyday and

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you're all invited to come hang out on it.

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But, before that point, we're gonna

spend this money on like a real lab and

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real scientists and stuff because we

might be able to take your lips, James.

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And put them under a microscope and

see what the surface texture of your

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particular vibrating surface is.

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And create a product specifically for

you that sort of fills in those gaps.

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Because That layer is

left after evaporation.

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So we can maybe create a pattern that,

that brings your lips, not that they

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don't already vibrate perfectly and

resonate beautifully, but it might

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bring them closer to that optimal

range or whatever you're looking for

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some it could be crazy like that.

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Speaker: That's an ambitious idea.

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And you seem to be like the kind of

person that acts on ambitious ideas.

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I'm super passionate about

my hat is off to you.

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Thanks so

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Speaker 2: much, man.

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Appreciate

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you.

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