How are starting brass students taught to play the range of notes nowadays? When I started on cornet 55 years ago, I was taught that you got high notes by pressing the mouthpiece harder on the lips. I suspect that was old-fasioned at the time. I took up the horn, and eventually got round to having some lessons from John Burden ("Horn playing, a new approach"). He gave me lots of exercises, lip slurring arpeggios on one fingering, and eventually (after two embouchure changes and some agonising reappraisals) I got a low(ish) pressure embouchure that still (at the age of 70) gets me top C (Bb side of Bb/F double) with moderate reliability.

My wife asked me to describe in words how I did this, and I found myself in some difficulty. I think of it as "DOO-EE", with "DOO" the low note, with thick, rounded lips, and "EE" the high note, with lateral tension, thinner lips, and the opening wider side to side, narrower top to bottom.

My questions are:

1) Does this describe what you do?

2) If so, how would you describe it better?

3) If not, what do you do?