There are many excellent trumpet players with so-called “natural” chops. Their natural chop set-up helps make them the excellent trumpet players that they are. Many of them aren’t exactly sure why they can play the way they do or what makes it work. When you ask them about how they do it, they can only give an incomplete or partial answer. Unfortunately for Bill, he does not have natural chops.

There are also some trumpet clinicians who have studied how chops work, and they can go into great detail about what does what and why. However, when placed into a real playing situation, quite often they cannot deliver. They don’t have the real-world experience of playing gigs night after night. Fortunately for Bill, he does not fall into this category.

What distinguishes Bill from many others is that not only did he work very hard to learn a new embouchure and understand how the facial muscles, lip tissue, and air stream all come together to form a proper embouchure, he puts that embouchure into practice in real-world playing situations day in and day out.

Bill’s ability to analyze chop problems and playing deficiencies is very impressive. He is very observant about everything that is happening with an embouchure, and has put many trumpet players on the correct course to become excellent trumpet players.

Professional trumpet players have seen Bill when they were having chop problems or having a problems with a certain section of the register.