Vessehune

What the heck. I have books by about everyone. I have BE, TCE, Superchops, Costello/Stevens, Pops books, Claude Gordon stuff, and some others....

I come to places like TH and find success stories for all of the methods. I'm not sure which one to do. I have a whole summer in front of me and I'm scared I'll be spending too much time trying to figure out what to practice instead of practicing.

I do need to work on the following: Endurance, tone, open aperature, sight reading, accuracy.(dang it always sucks to list weeknesses)

I would like to continue to improve my range, make it easier, but at this point I have more important things to work on.

Any advice?

Tootsall

Sounds like "Paralysis by Analysis" to me. Why don't you think back to what worked best FOR YOU and then continue with that method?

dbacon

2-3 hours a day of practice minimum. Schlossberg, Clarke, Irons, Arban, Charlier, Jazz Studies, Sight Read, spread your practice time out over the whole day keeping the chops fresh. Make every sound great, extend your range with Schlossberg up by half steps, or George Grahams Range Exercise or any other good exercise book.

Find your method. Develop your technique, work on your musicianship, listen to lots of great music, read about music, read about great musicians. Practice smart.

Take naps, exercise, spend time with the family, rinse, floss.....

Find things that work well for you, don't grab a method off the shelf and say, "Today I'm doing Costello!"

Nothing works better than smart practice working towards being a fine musician.

If nothing else, sight read your butt off. You'll work more the better you read. More guys loose more gigs because they really can't read well.

JackD

Don't over-practice!

Rest as much as you play (really do, it works!), and take a day off if you're feeling spent.

dcstep

[quote="dbacon"]2-3 hours a day of practice minimum. [quote]

This is unrealistic for all but students and pros (pros would play more). The original poster seems to be a comeback player, but I'm not sure.

I think Balanced Embouchure is a complete, self-explanatory method that works no matter what "method" was previously used. If he's like most of us, the previous methods probably didn't work. BE is a set of excercises that will allow the user to develop a functioning, efficient embouchure.

Anyway, 15 to 20-minutes per day on BE, supplemented with your choice of Arbans, Charlier, Schlossberg, Caruso, etc, totalling three to six hours per week, should realistically yield progressive improvement.

Dave

dbacon

I believe Brian is a college student home for the summer.

2 hours a day for a serious player is minimal.

Vessehune

I'm a comeback college student!! :) I took 4 years off and didn't touch my horn at all. Since I've been back in school I've never been able to play the way I want to. I always seem to fatigue out very easily. I also need extreme work on my muti-tonguing. So I thought I would practice my butt of this summer!!! :)

dbacon

http://abel.hive.no/oj/musikk/trompet/practice/gekker/


This is great!

His article on Practicing is as well!!

dcstep

This is overkill for those of us busy making a living otherwise. Two to four hours per week keeps me gaining range and endurance. (Of course, there's one or two four-hour gigs mixed in each month). Also, I supplement with the pencil excercise and lip-clamp-squeak (a BE excercise).

Learn to play properly and you don't need all that practice.

I'm not against practice for those that have the time. In high school I played 2 to 6 hours per day to gain most of my technical skills.

Dave

Nonsense Eliminator

"Learn to play properly and you don't need all that practice."

What the heck does that mean?