| Ahhh.... long tones at ppppp :) OK, so you know that already! Flow exercises, etudes... you probaby have that covered as well. chorales... fantastic stuff. Dare I suggest getting a couple or three others and working some ensemble music? "Tone Poems"? Baroque? some of James Olcott's stuff? Make 'em SING!
Hey man, those skills will spring back faster than you know. Sure is a great argument for reinforcing the need to cover MANY different genres during practice though, isn't it?
That leads me to another point.... I believe that "we" do ourselves a disfavor by ranking exercise music as "beginner", "intermediate", etc. I believe that even the "simplest" exercises are great for ANYONE regardless of their skill level. I've recently (OK, a month back) started doing some exercises (long, slow, quiet slurs) that are no higher than "C" in the staff.... no more than about 10 minutes a day. Suddenly my tone quality has improved, my ability to get clean attacks is greater, C down to F# is "speaking" quicker and easier, and 'my' upper range (A to high C) is getting EASIER. Now, if a very simple exercise such as that can produce those kind of results, they shouldn't be called "beginner" in my books.
I would prefer that the "authors" of these exercises would just call them "simple", "intermediate", and "difficult".
OK... gotta go and warm up now.... extra 9:30 rehearsal for next weekend's concerts (wish those clarinets would learn their music a bit earlier). And one of those percussionists.... his mainspring is wound too tight. Of course the trumpets are dead on the money... as always. (HA!) |