Work on Your Warm-Up/Double Tonguing Scales and Arpeggios

The following post is a combination of two posts from the original HTML Horn Notes Blog dating to 11/23/04 and 11/30/04.

Recently on the horn list someone posted an item that was sort of critical of some unnamed teacher who required all their students to do the __________ (fill in the blank) horn warm-up. The writer felt this was too regimented I guess and while I don’t have students do one specific warm up I do want to feel sure that they in fact have something like a regular routine going. My observation is that students who don’t have a regular warm-up routine won’t make it on the horn (want to make it?).

Working out the Farkas warm-up as an undergraduate was certainly a key to my success on the horn and, stated simply, I feel that warming up is critical to any success on the horn. Each player is wired a bit differently as to what works but for me certainly I need to warm-up 15-20 minutes at the beginning of a practice session and for roughly the same amount before any rehearsal or concert. In fact, when I described my warm-up to Farkas in a lesson he told me I was warming up too much (!) but I believe he was more set with the idea of the big warm-up being in the morning and the rest of the day you were basically warmed-up already (which works for many players, but not for me).

I have had a series of basically set warm-up routines over the years which I give copies to my students to help in formulating their routine. Compared to many other warm-ups I have found mine tends to start a little slower (longer in the mid-range) and mine is more focused on getting the lips feeling flexible. But as I am currently between major performances I have been working on different warm-up materials than normal, especially the Doug Hill warm-ups, to focus in on my technique. They go beyond Farkas in a number of ways, especially at the tempos he requests, and in the longest version of the warm-up it really covers just about every technical aspect of the horn at a very high level. These warm-ups are published by Really Good Music [see update at end of post for the link] and are well worth checking out (follow the links to Doug Hill–his new trill book looks pretty interesting as well).

There are many classic and many new warm-up related publications out there. The main thing is to not only work out a routine that works to get you to the point that you feel very warmed-up but also to push yourself into new technical areas and master them. Even a old classic like the Farkas warm-up is one that if you have it totally worked out technically you will be very well equipped to play almost any work that comes your way. Work your warm-up.

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This is a follow up to the previous item on the warm-up. I long have only been able to double tongue repeated notes, not scales and arpeggios, relying instead on a very fast single tongue (faster than almost any player I know of) to perform passages of this type. Verne Reynolds, my teacher at Eastman, said to me once that I “tongued like a one-eyed blacksnake” and in short, for him, a fast single tongue was and is the horn players best friend. I would tend to agree with this actually still, but you can’t play everything you need to be able to play without double and triple tonguing. I learned to double tongue, believe it or not, after finishing my Masters degree and Performers Certificate at Eastman, when I was taking orchestral auditions. In terms of orchestral horn passages you can certainly get by with a good double tongue on repeated notes such as I worked out but there are times when it is really useful to break out into scales and arpeggios when double tonguing. (If you are wondering, yes, I can single tongue the 3rd horn excerpt in Mendelssohn 3 at 126 to the quarter note, a passage that many would double tongue).

In short, over the long weekend I was doing all the versions of the Doug Hill warm-up and learned to double tongue scales and arpeggios! His double tonguing exercise is worth the price of the book. It is actually a very simple exercise; if you can double tongue at all within days you probably can expand your technique quickly if working on a well focused exercise such as his.

I am also working on his triple tonguing exercises as well. I had only been comfortable “double tonguing with accents” (TKT KTK patterns alternating–this works well in Don Juan), was never comfortable with the TTK TTK pattern, and could not triple tongue scales or arpeggios either. The TKT TKT pattern looks to be the way to go for me.

The 2009 update would be I actually have opted to just stick with my double tonguing with accents method instead of true triple tonguing, I feel like too much of an old dog to learn that new trick. If you are a young player and can’t multiple tongue, learn to double and triple tongue now! The retail source for the Douglas Hill book of Warm-ups and Maintenance Sessions for the Horn Player is www.reallygoodmusic.com. I would just note that the last time I ordered the website had fallen badly out of date and if you placed an order you would be contacted almost immediately by phone by the owner to revise the shipping and payment information. It seems to be updated now but you should perhaps still plan to contact the owner directly by E-mail or phone to confirm the price and shipping information before you place your order.