.

[Shostytuben]

.

[OffuttTubaGuy]

There are many great method books and studies out there (I own most of them), but if you examine 2 or more notes in ANY piece, it’s either an interval, part of a scale or an arpeggio. Get the Arban book: it’s the best source of scales, arpeggios, and intervals, IMO. Once you get your scales down, get into the habit of playing the modal and chromatic patterns. Once you get your arpeggios down fairly well, practice the inversions. All of this is presented in the book. If you learn and practice these 3 things alone, you will be surprised how fast your playing progresses.

[PaulMaybery]

Some routines are more than just a warm up, but are very important in establishing fundamentals. One well known pro symphony player once spoke of how he needs a simple routine that gets him ready for the job. For instance doing lip slurs (up ward) rather that wasting time on the down slur which is relatively easy. Other basic tonguing exercises, fingering, intervals that reconnect your musicianship to actually playing the horn. One horn player I know advocates singing at full operatic volume in the car on the way to the gig to open the breathing appartus. Singing solfege exercises in the car also gets you somewhat more finely tuned to being able to match pitches when you play. Sometimes when we arrive at the gig we only have 10 minutes or so. Bob Nagel, trumpet with the early New York Brass Quintet often did clinics on playing a gig without time for a warm up. Take the horn from the case, pop the mouthpiece in and play. Bob was very often racing from gig to gig, symphony rehearals to recording sessions, to teaching. You are the best person to determine what you need to get going. The more extended warmup may be better referred to as a 'daily routine.' But your ability to just play a gig should not depend on whether you had sufficient time to run the whole gamut. I have a daily routine that takes several hours with appropriate rest/recovery time. I feel it is important in keeping my fundamentals and habits in check. But is is not realistic to show up for a gig 2 hours early and bother the stage crew. Part of the routine is developing a certain confidence that says, I can do this, with very little or no warm up. Much of that is mental and deals with simply getting yourself and your chops focused and on the job. Maybe you wanted to hear all about scale, arpeggios, lip slurs and all that. Sorry.

[swillafew]

http://www.hickeys.com/search/products/sku087361.php

I got a (then current) version of that book from Paul M. back when I was his student; it is still valid for me today.

I updated my routine with this one: http://www.hip-bonestore.com/20_Minute_ ... hbm183.htm some years later and it is a worthy companion to the first one.

If you can only afford one, the second one comes with a recording that really makes the product, and I would suggest that one.

[Lee Stofer]

I think it is important to try different exercises, and eventually discover what works best for you, very likely taking parts of this - and that exercises, and coming up with your own custom warm-up. During my Army career, I eventually developed a warm-up routine that I could do in as little as 10 minutes on a hurried day. The routine consists of a series of lip slurs through different registers and intervals, designed to help warm-up and loosen-up the embouchure with no wasted time, then playing through all scales, major and all forms of minor, two octaves. This was the first-thing-in-the-morning routine, and any practice, rehearsal or performance was after that in the day.

I do think that it is also important to get to the point that you can pick up a cold horn and just play. I couldn't do that in high school, and it was only in my third year of playing as much as humanly possible in college that I started getting to that point. I'm still not sure that I believe that there is such a thing as perfect pitch, but the more one plays, and really concentrates on playing in tune and listening, the more finely-tuned your relative sense of pitch becomes. Likewise, as one becomes increasingly physically comfortable with the mechanics of playing, the warm-up becomes less of a necessity and more of a luxury.