dbacon

Thanks for being on TM, and giving us the chance to pick your brains!

One area that always interests me is the practice routine used by fine players. How do you approach this, how do you get the practice routine to be it's most efficient?

Thanks for your time!

kadleck

Hi Dave -

Boy, if you know of a good practice routine, I'm all ears!

Actually, my practicing usually depends on my work schedule. If I have some gigs that will be a workout, I'll just do a thorough warm up that day. If I'm not working one day, I'll have to put in some practice time.

The biggest problem I've encountered is that players tend to practice/play things that they sound GOOD on. The trick is to practice/play things that you sound BAD on. (Sounds simple, but it's amazing how often it doesn't happen.)

I picked out some of my biggest weaknesses and wrote my own exercises based on them. I do them daily, and it forces me to tackle, rather than avoid those problems.

The older I get, the longer it takes me to warm up. Now I'm in the habit of getting to gigs really early, throwing in a practice mute, and going at it. I do Clarke #2, lip slurs (tons of them), tonguing, and range exercises.

When I'm home (and don't have a 4 yr. old crawling on me), I like to slow down the pace of practicing. (play, rest, play, rest) Although not as often as I like, I also put on Aebersold play-along CD's to try to keep my jazz ideas together.

The trumpet is such a physical instrument. It's hard to stay on top of things, but I can always tell when I've put in the time and when I haven't!

Tony

dbacon

"I picked out some of my biggest weaknesses and wrote my own exercises based on them. I do them daily, and it forces me to tackle, rather than avoid those problems."

Great idea, sounds like Mr. Vacchiano's approach too. I'm going to do some thinking is this area....but I have so many weaknesses, so little time!

Thanks for ths info Tony! Stay well.

ALLCHOPS

I tend to do this as well but the rough stuff just doesn't seem to want to smooth out!

Any suggestions?

Tony G

Alex Yates

I would like to chime in on this a bit, so I hope you don't mind Tony.

Whenever encountering the rough stuff, take it down the gradient scale to something you CAN do and work your way up to it, adding one thing at a time. This reinforces good habits while working on challenging things. For example....

Someone might say, "I can't play that sustained C above the staff when I get to the end of this four measure phrase". Ok....so, what do you do? If it is a bunch of sixteenth notes ending on a sustained C, the first thing you would do is take the fourth measure, change the sixteenths to quarters (pick the first note of each group and sustain it) and play them with a nice solid sound, singing and ringing, and make sure they are slotted correctly, etc. So, you would play four quarters and then the sustained C. When that sounds EXCELLENT, you can then change the quarters to eighths - play that last measure using eighths, making sure there are no anticipatory tendencies on any of the notes leading to the C - make sure all notes are comfortable and singing and centered. When that sounds EXCELLENT and feels secure, play the last measure as written - all sixteenths - and end on the sustained C. Again, when this sounds EXCELLENT and feels secure, add the last two measures, then the last three and then finally the entire phrase. Working through challenges this way keeps one 'up' emotionally because you are reinforcing what you can do well while finding what might be causing the challenge in the first place. During this hypothetical practice session, the player might have found that they were playing high on the pitch in the entire last measure or last group of sixteenths in anticipation of the "high" C. That could easily cause "the problem".

This is just one example of how to tackle challenges when they come our way or simply to improve on something we cannot do well. There are several ways this hypothetical problem could have been solved. It depends on the individual mostly. The important thing is to leave the ego at the door, break a problem into cells of what you can do and work your way up. The same can be said for range. If you want to increase it, simply play scales to what is comfortable and solid and each week go up a half step. When put into this kind of perspective, it doesn't feel nearly as daunting and is much more rewarding.

trpt2345

You know, you'd think that it would be obvious but it is not at all. You have to work at what you suck at much more than what you're good at. Remember Clarke? "Don't waste your time on those things that are easy, concentrate instead on those that are hard." Or something like that. Harvey Phillips once described practicing as "making horrible noises alone in a room" which sort of says something similar. It requires a certain humility to admit that there are things that you can't do, and then go at them with energy.

Michael Mclaughlin

"I don't care what other critics say, I only hope to be played."
Virgil Thomson

dbacon

Great responses! One of the ways I try to deal with less time/need to practice well issue is doing a couple of things at the same time. Example: articulation combined with scales. Diminished scales single/multiple tongue. Flow studies for warm ups, but do a ii-V pattern all over the horn. Instead of Clarke (gotta come back to the original once in a while) do Vizzutti/Tony Plog material. 30 mins in Nagel's "Trumpet Skills" book rather than Schlossberg. Sight read at the piano (which I suck at) while resting the chops. It's still sight reading!

Find out what you can't do, then practice that until you can. Then find something else you can't do and practice that until you can!

Spleeyah!

Good call, Kadleck!!

I've always liked the mentality that 'you shouldn't always sound good in the practice room.' of course, the more/effieciently you practice the better stuff will sound in the practice room, but you just shouldn't just practice the stuff you sound good on, as Kadleck was saying.

At the same time, you want to practice being successful and not allow yourself to practice making mistakes/bad habits. Usually that means slowing things down, working up smaller sections then piecing them together, etc, etc. RECORDING YOURSELF is also very helpful. you'll hear stuff that you dont hear while you're playing. Find a nice, big room and record yourself performing something you've been working on and you'll know what i mean.

anyways,..that's an abbreviated explanation, i won't go into a long dissertation about it, haha!!