| Re: Endurance
Andrew,
Something you wrote above interests me a lot. You mentioned not working too hard. I want to take this in a different way than I think you intended, to the same end though.
Elliot
I've recently cut back on my practicing by half an hour to an hour per day. I'm still in a practice room around 3 hours a day without fail and playing in rehearsals etc, but I've consciously cut back on the amount of time I'm actually "playing." I noticed about a month ago that every day I reached a point where I said, "I have to stop now," and where I was tired. Any practicing I tried to do at that point was useless and detrimental.
I've since been trying to do more work off the horn, even on the mouthpiece, but more singing whatever I'm working on, playing it on the piano, just staring at it, visualizing, etc. as long as I'm only playing fresh. I've found that things are improving much quicker and that I'm playing better in general. I've also found that my endurance has "improved" if you will. There's a quote to the extent of, "If I don't miss notes, I won't miss notes." I'm thinking that "if I don't play tired, I won't get tired" can be deduced from that. That leads back to what Andrew said about playing correctly.
Andrew
What I think might be interesting to know is, what do you do to maintain this correctness of playing when practicing things that stretch your limits?... range, flexibility, speed, volume? (running analogy) How do you ensure that things that really push your "sprinting" ability don't hinder your "endurance?"
Matt |