commakozzi

Mr. McCandless is certainly the pro here, and I don't want to try to step on any toes whatsoever, but I understand your problem and I would like to weigh in as well. Not only would I want to get my mouthpiece warm before such a passage, but I'd also like to warm my horn up as well. Maybe this is something that a professional orchestra player would rather not do for other reasons. For example they may not want to see a lot of extra movement or have any extra noise (air blowing, etc.) when the trumpets aren't supposed to be playing. I don't know about that, but when I'm playing (or resting I should say), and I have a pp passage coming up I like to pick the horn up and wrap my hands around it and blow through the horn until I feel the valve casings warm up. Usually I don't have a problem with coming in out of tune, and on top of the warming of the horn I will do everything I can to try to buzz my lips (without buzzing). I know that doesn't sound like it makes sense, but bear with me. What I do is that I act like I'm about to buzz so that I purse the lips a few times like I'm about to buzz, and I'll even stretch them if I feel like I need to, but basically I think about it like I'm doing everything besides actually buzzing. If the ensembles is loud enough I'll actually free buzz a little to get ready, but then you're talking about pp attacks so that would not be a good thing for you to do in that situation. Anyway, that's my 2 cents, and please correct me if I'm wrong Mr. McCandless.

Hey, practice cold attacks at home! I work on pp attacks everyday, but you've given me a good idea. I might set up a drone on low C and practice coming in cold, in tune, and play a passage in C. Hmm... interesting.