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Every year in my teaching the topic of how to practice effectively and maintain good chops for performances comes up with students. The tactic I suggest to horn students is to structure the playing day around an idea that you want to have three solid playing sessions in an ideal day.
Looking back on my Horn matters writings, I was thinking surely I must have written about this? Actually I have not, other than a few basics of the idea laid out in this article, buried far at the end of a long article, with my Orchestra 101 book also touching lightly on the topic, in relation to auditions, and also my warmup book.
I believe I end up talking to most every student about this at some point, and the talk has become better organized over years of teaching. The essential idea is that an ideal horn playing day is structured in three sessions. A session can be any of these
- An hour of practice
- A horn lesson
- A rehearsal (up to 2.5 hours)
- A concert (up to 2.5 hours)
So for example, if you had a large ensemble rehearsal and a concert you would only plan to practice an hour in the part of the day that had no rehearsal or concert, but if you had no rehearsals or concerts you could practice three hours — an hour in the morning, an hour in the afternoon, and an hour in the evening.
Before expanding on each type of playing session, there is one other critical thing to note. Warm up before each session! For me personally, as of now, I aim for 20 minutes of warmup as the beginning of the first session and 10-15 as the warmup portion of any following session. The goal is to warm up, play seriously, and then rest three times a day, with a warm-down at the end of each session being a good idea too. The playing times include,
Practice. Sessions should not be over an hour, and they should be spread out in the day. A two hour practice session is too much, especially if it is right before or after another session.
A lesson. Don’t do a lesson right after or before another session if you can help it, and don’t do it at a time when you can’t warm up.
Rehearsal. These vary in intensity of course, but a 2.5 hour orchestra rehearsal or an hour of brass quintet is certainly equal to an hour of practice.
Concert. A concert hits your chops much the same as the rehearsal if not harder. Any solid concert eliminates a practice session.
The big issue I’m wanting to address here is that students hear that they should get in three hours of practice a day. The basic idea is correct as presented by Farkas about spacing your practice out in a day, but three hours of actual practice won’t work well any day that you have rehearsals or concerts. I came around to a system like this when I was a student, I’m not recalling any teacher specifically suggesting it to me in fact, I just came to realize that there are days where I needed to intentionally limit practice to have good chops for rehearsals, lessons, and concerts. So some days you won’t practice at all! And that is OK.
What about days that, due to circumstances not completely in your control, you have an especially heavy day? The next day you pay for it – and to recover from it you should play no more than two sessions the following day. If you see that extra heavy day coming it would also be a good idea to take a light day before. Of course, life won’t always cooperate, but if you can keep horn playing confined generally to a three session a day ideal it will pay off with better, more consistent chops.
Related to the above, it is not a bad idea to plan in a day every week that is lighter, with only one hour of practice. There has to be time to recover. The occasional day off is also a good idea for your chops.
A final note to teachers out there, I must add that I find playing little by little all day teaching lessons to be a bit hard on the chops. My chops feel the best on days where my only playing is practice, rehearsals, or performances. Especially on days where you have performances, it may pay off to limit your playing when teaching lessons.
