Embouchure

The word embouchure has more than one meaning like most words we use. It can be the mouth of a river and it is defined also as the use of facial muscles and the shaping of the lips to the mouthpiece of woodwind instruments or the mouthpiece of the brass instruments. The word is of French origin and is related to the root word bouche, French for mouth. The proper embouchure allows the instrumentalist to play the instrument at its full range with a full, clear tone and without strain or damage to one's muscles, perhaps allowing the music to flow like a river’s water might flow, metaphorically speaking. After all music is so much more than sound or tone and a river is so much more than just flowing water.

After nearly tripping over one of my grandson, Jonas’ forgotten shoes, I thought of this word. Two cats continue to conspire to trip me up by pulling it out from under the bench and into my path by a shoelace. Like the shoe in my path the word embouchure keeps popping into my thoughts. The shoe forgetter is 11 now and his dream instrument, he claims, is the French horn. He’s learning to play music with a small tuba, what the band instructor had available. He reads music better than me and if he stays with it, I wonder how embouchure will mark his features as he grows up and where his music will take him.