- - Please visit: Legacy Horn Experience - -
While to this point this series has focused on older published sources on the horn, at this time we turn a corner toward three more recent publications, all of which are in print and I recommend serious students of the horn to purchase and read.
“To be warmed up is a state of mind”
Frøydis Ree Wekre notes in Thoughts on Playing the Horn Well that there are two extremes when it comes to warm-up.
Brass players are often more obsessed with the physical side of playing than other musicians. Many “warm up” for many hours, and their daily total of playing hours consists of much more exercises than actual musical material. A few brass players, however, say that, “To be warmed up is a state of mind,” and they do live it, as well. I feel very much in between these two extremes. On one hand I can see and have also experienced for myself the need for physical training and some warm up. On the other hand, it is possible, and sometimes necessary, to start playing directly after a long interval. The best solution, in my opinion, is to be flexible and have some discipline, but keep all sorts of rules, such as “always’es” and “never’s”, from running your life….
Usually it is pleasant to start the day with some kind of warm up. Once in a while, surprise yourself by just picking up the horn and playing something before—or instead of—warming up….
Many players like to practise exactly the same things every day. That way, they claim, they can “measure” what shape they are in for the day as well as their progress. I feel somewhat restricted by this idea. On “heavier” days, when the lips are strange from too much or too little playing, or from the weather, the food, the drinking, the mood, the lack of sleep or whatever, I find it better to play something easy and pleasant to boost the self-confidence first.
Play long tones, but not in your warmup
Wekre also felt that long tones were important but she did not do them as a part of her morning warm-up routine.
Long tones can be practised in many different ways. Some people find them boring and stiffening, but I find them interesting and strengthening. I do prefer them, however, in the evening rather than in the morning.
The long tone routine she presents is to benefit air and embouchure control. Wekre additionally notes,
Take breaks between tones. Possibly combine this exercise with scales and arpeggios. Go often to your maximum low range to loosen up. Long tones can also be combined with a little reading or even watching TV between every tone!
The warmup for a beginner is very different than that of a professional player
“There are as many warm-up routines as there are players and teachers” is how Verne Reynolds begins his discussion of the warm up in The Horn Handbook.
This is as it should be. The beginner will obviously have a warm-up that differs greatly from that of the middle-aged professional. The warm-up should change and develop as the player changes and develops.
Reynolds views the warm-up as being about more than warming-up the embouchure.
The term warm-up is used here as a convenient way to encompass the mental and physical activities that precede the playing of the instrument in a musical sense. For horn players, the warm-up should gently and gradually awaken all of the elements of playing and particularly those related to response and flexibility.
It is interesting to observe the warm-up of professional tennis players. No match begins until the players have warmed up their forehands, backhands, overhands, and serves…. Athletic warm-up serves to refresh, remind, and rehearse the physical fundamentals of the game. It can also inform the player, and possibly the opponent, how the various shots feel on a particular day…. No athlete would continue with a warm-up that produces fatigue, but brass players often use a punishing ritual forced upon them by a well- meaning but rigid teacher. Athletes warm up easily and with minimum effort but practice with a controlled intensity. Athletes have a clear separation between warm-up and workout. Runners do a lot of stretching before they run so that leg and other muscles are ready for the dash or marathon; yet brass players tend to play before everything is flexible and responsive.
It should not be a punishing ritual
An aside as a former Reyonlds student reflecting on studies with him after his passing, the routine he gave students in the timeframe of my studies would I think fall into the category of being a “punishing ritual.” In any case, he further suggests that
During the training years, students with the help of their teachers should periodically examine and evaluate their warm-up. We have to find a balance between staying with a routine long enough to produce the desired results, and being willing to change when the warm-up is not satisfactory. A sixteen-year-old might have to adjust the warm-up every few months if the embouchure is gaining strength rapidly. The twenty-six year old professional might have to alter some of the patterns to conform to the demands of the job. The forty-six-year-old veteran will seek to preserve reliability and predictability and will probably be reluctant to change a routine that continues to work.
The warmup as a complete session
The introduction to the chapter titled “The Warm-Up as a Complete Session” makes the case for the extended warm-up in Douglas Hill, Collected Thoughts on Teaching and Learning, Creativity, and Horn Performance.
The original version of the following appeared as an article in The Horn Call and was written in response to an earlier published article in which the author considered most substantial warm-ups as paranoid head-trips and a waste of one’s time and endurance. My experience as a performer and teacher has taught me that such an attitude can be quite misleading, especially for the younger, developing student of the horn. We must take charge of our development as players, use our heads, and accept the physical reality that constantly requires great power and enormous subtleties from our muscles. There are no athletes or dancers who, after using their heads, would regularly perform without a workout or maintenance session. Such neglect would ruin their strength and flexibility in a very short time. As performers, we are using our facial muscles in a way that is quite contrary to what they were initially designed to do…. They require exercise—intelligent, progressive, consistent exercise. When you have learned that through your own hard work you have created a strong, dependable, and flexible set of muscles, the best of all head-trips will occur. You will have confidence, and it will be base on personal achievement.
The warm-up/maintenance session for Hill should “cover all of the basic technical needs of horn playing” and should be carefully planned and executed. He suggests use of additional equipment as well which could include “a mirror, a metronome, a chromatic tuner, a B.E.R.P. attachment for initial buzzing exercises, and occasionally a recording device.” Finally he suggests
Create your own warm-up/maintenance session. There are no magic notes that will work for everyone. If there were, we would all know them by now. We have to take this trip on our own, use our heads, learn from the patterns of others, and quickly establish some patterns based on our own successes. As you age in this profession, you will need consistent patterns to depend upon for maintenance. You will also find that the earliest patterns may need to be gradually modified as you gradually change.
Continue in Hornmasters Series
