- - Please visit: Legacy Horn Experience - -
In this time of separation during the coronavirus, it is a good time to rethink your warmup, to experiment, to work to improve technique, and a good time to be sensitive to others with regard to your “condensation.”
Condensation
As brass players, we are not very concerned about condensation. However, you may have noticed, in interactions with perhaps pianists or singers — or your relatives! — others can be very put off by it.
Here at ASU we received a reminder, in this time of an abundance of caution, please find a way to collect your condensation and not leave it in your practice space. You may need to improvise on a receptacle, but we need to do this out of respect to others. If you are practicing at home, you might consistently use for example a dedicated trashcan or an old towel for condensation, to avoid any hint of spreading germs via condensation.
Words I never expected to need to say! However, the reality always was that we should generally not be so careless about this, and these are times like no other. We really do need to do all we can to try to protect the elderly and the medically fragile (such as those in cancer treatment) in the coming weeks. Stay well, and do what you can to keep others well!
Warmup
With the condensation taken care of, we turn to the warmup. I recently published a warmup publication (more here), which is available in print or as a Kindle epublication.
One “elephant in the room” topic with warmup publications is how do the authors of the publication actually warmup? Does it look like the book? In my case, the answer is yes, but I do have a specific way I use it. My most normal day presently is:
- Start with “first notes” on the top of page 6
- Next a slow version of the Clarke study starting on page 12
- Next a fast version of the Clarke study
- The “Exercise with Drones” on page 20, but without a drone
- The Fast, Low Arpeggios starting on page 21
- Finally, the two octave scales as presented starting on page 22
I find these exercises, in this order, to be the most essential to getting my chops feeling in the right place to practice. If you find these exercises to be excessively difficult, there are alternates in my publication and elsewhere, but be working of course to raise your level so they are playable.
