Skip to main content

Warm Ups

Warm Ups

Creating a daily warm up, or routine, is a necessity. This can cover a wide range of exercises and you can use this time to incorporate your fundamental practice as well. Most teachers have their own ideas and their own version of a warm up. What I recommend is trying out everything that you can find. A lot of teachers have published their versions and they are available for free or for purchase online. A simple google search will get you to more warm ups than you could ever want. Take parts from each that you like and slowly build your own routine. I like to have one that lasts around an hour to really cover everything that gets me prepared for the day, but I also have a short 15-20 minute routine for days when I just do not have the luxary time. Here are some tips for building your own warm up:

1 - start with something slow. Find some simple buzzing exercises, both with and without the mouthpiece, and cover a limited range and get your face to start waking up

2 - breathing. It may seem weird to not start with breathing, but I have found more success with breath work once I have started to get my focus for the day. Find a couple of simple things to work through with breath. Make sure that they focus on taking deep breaths with different pacings.

3 - get to the horn. I like to jump in and cover the whole range of the horn right away doing some chromatic exercises. Then I slowly increase the intervals throughout my routine. I start with scale type studies, then move to things that are built around arpeggios, then I incorporate the 5ths and octaves exercises from the Farkas routine to finish things out.

4 - hit your weaknesses. Say your biggest weakness is your low range. Make sure you do low range exercises in your warm up! The Brophy book is an easy resource to find a few quick studies to work on.

5 - take a break! Once you are done, take a few minutes to get the horn off of the face. Go for a short walk, drink some water, watch something on youtube, just take a few minutes to relax!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Section Playing

Section Playing Each member of the horn section plays a different role. From the perspective of a work that is written for four different horn parts, composers tend to follow a standard model to get the sound that they want. It is important to know where you fall within this model and how to be your best self in the role you have been given. The first horn: also known as the principal horn, this position is the leader of the pack. This part is normally written the highest and sometimes requires the use of an assistant. This is your go to reference point for articulations, dynamics, and overall musicality. They usually have the most featured parts and should also help lead the section with breathing and entrances. If you have questions about your music, this is your first point of contact. If the principal does not know the answer, they will usually ask the conductor or have you speak to him after rehearsal or during a break. This person will hopefully lead by example and set the ...

Embouchure

Embouchure The best embouchures are often described as two-thirds top lip, one-third bottom. This comes from the way that we aim our airstream down into our lead pipe. Having more top lip gives us better control with aiming our air and makes shifting between ranges easier. Lips comes in a variety of shapes and sizes and appropriate mouthpieces can aid in finding this balance. Your teeth can also play a role in helping find the proper placement as well. An easy way to find a setting is to place the mouthpiece almost to the lips and then begin a free buzz and slowly place the mouthpiece on your face and allow the muscles to relax around the mouthpiece to keep the buzz going once it is in place. Aperture, the hole your lips make to allow air through, plays a huge part in this setup as well. Aperture should naturally find its way through simple exercises and can also help guide the mouthpiece to proper placement. Check that the corners of your mouth are firm so that air is not slip...

Intonation

Intonation Learning how to play in tune with yourself and others should be a fun process for you. It takes patience and attention to detail, but the end results are life changing for your playing. First off, make sure you have a metronome and a tuner. There are lots of apps that exist today for these, but if you are willing to spend a little money, I recommend the TonalEnergy Tuner. This app lets you have the metronome and tuner going at the same time. You can also have the app play drones, which we will get to shortly. First, make sure that your horn is in tune with itself and a tuner. There are many different types of horns with different tuning systems so it is best to get help from someone with experience tuning the horn the first time you do this. I also have found this video by Matthew Hogan useful for students to get an introduction to tuning the horn. The best place to start is by learning your tendencies. Each note will require a little adjustment to get perfectly in ...