warm-up

[The Big Ben]

I find warming up essential to brass playing. Not only does getting a good solid warm up get blood flowing the appropriate places but also allows one to focus.

This first part looks like a 'warm up'.

My warm up looks like this:

I do 5-10 mins of stretching even before I touch my mouthpiece.

I then do the Brass Gym mouthpiece drill, with my own additions. I am a HUGE fan of Sam and Pat's Brass Gym book. It covers so much material in a very practical way.I generally take a break between each buzzing exercise to sing, stretch, do breathing gym stuff, whatever I feel like.

After my buzzing routine, I move on to long tones. I very rarely warm up on my F. I spend 10 or so mins just on long tones. From C in the bass clef to two octaves below that. I find this good for not only warming my chops, but tuning, and tone.

From here on, this looks like 'skill building' or practice rather than warm up.

After my long tones, it depends on what Im feeling like. I'll either move on to scales, arpeggios or some Remington stuff maybe. Or sometimes I'll just pick up my Arbans book and go to a random page and sight read some stuff.

Another staple of my warm up is the "Bugle" exercise from the Brass Gym book. Such an amazing tone and range builder!

About how much time do you spend doing this entire warm up? What do you do when you are pressed for time?

This entire thread has been very interesting to me. I have a background in athletic training and I have been comparing techniques with what I see described here. Workouts all have some sort of warm up, 'work' and cool down. Even a runner who is pressed for time with stretch for 5 minutes before going off on a run and hold the pace down for a mile or so to begin. Afterwards, at least walking for 5 or so minutes to cool down. In an ideal situation, the stretching goes on for at least 30 min. then a little jogging or slow running and then the 'meat' of the workout begins. Afterwards, about the same- 30 min. or so of slower speed work then 5 or so minutes of stretching and then to the shower.

It would seem (if there is any comparison) that, at a minimum, 5 or so minutes should be spend on limbering up the lips and lungs (long tones, arpeggios, slurs, scales, etc.), start the 'work' with something non-straining for the first ten minutes or so of the practice time and then whatever. After the 'work' is done, about 5 min. or so with long tones, simple little tunes, etc. to cool down and then to the beer hall. The 'ideal' would be some of the involved activities that have been described by others.

To me, it doesn't seem like a good practice to blast into something difficult without having some sort of warm up. I suppose that it would be necessary at times (flat tire going to the gig for instance) but not a good idea otherwise.

[Rick Denney]

I have a background in athletic training and I have been comparing techniques with what I see described here. Workouts all have some sort of warm up, 'work' and cool down. Even a runner who is pressed for time with stretch for 5 minutes before going off on a run and hold the pace down for a mile or so to begin. Afterwards, at least walking for 5 or so minutes to cool down.

Don't try to draw too much comparison with athletic training.

Most of the reason for warming up before a training session is to prevent injury because of insufficient blood supply or insufficient lubrication in the muscles and joints. The warmups are done primarily for workouts with a lot of intensity--the risk of injury for low-intensity training (such as long, slow distance runs) is much less and I don't know many runner who spend much time warming up for the LSD workouts. Those workouts are like warming up. Runners don't do sprints or speed work without a warmup, but tuba players almost never get asked to do the equivalent of speed work or sprints.

Much of what tuba players play in performance situations is low-intensity stuff with respect to the muscles needed. It doesn't take much muscle to play, for example, a Shostakovich symphony. Any working pro (or pro wannabe) should never really get out of the warmed-up state long enough for such playing to require it.

I take long warmups when I'm out of practice (which is nearly all the time these days) and when the material requires more intensity (such as upper-register stuff). But when I played professionally (such as it was), I played every day and hardly required any warmup at all to play upper-register music in a tuba quartet. Even in my current out-of-shape state, my careful warmup takes at most 10 minutes. And that warmup lasts for hours--I can spend ten minutes at home warming up before leaving for the gig and still feel most of the benefits of it when I arrive.

Even more important for runner than warming up is training up. They can run long and fast because they started out running short and slow, and worked their way up to long and fast over a period. I remember a well-known track cyclist asking a group of us why we needed to carbo-load and spend an hour warming up for a track pursuit that would take us a handful of minutes. The warmup is what came day in and day out for the previous few years.

Rick "who warms up mostly to remember about tone, airflow, and pitch" Denney

[Kory101]

Ben,

It generally takes me 45 mins - to an hour to finish all that I stated up there. I suppose you are right. The part with lip slurs, scales and other things is more skill building. I should have clarified. I do whatever I can to not be pressed for time. If that means getting to school at 7:30 in the morning, I do it. In fact, because of classes, I warm up every morning during the school week at 7:30 EVERY MORNING. Im up at 6:30, breakfast, school, warm up. It's become a steady routine. I've never found that Im pressed for time. And like I said, if I know Im going to be pressed for time, I will MAKE time to warm up. Baring some sort of automobile accident or something and showing up 5 mins before a concert, but Im sure that won't happen. *knock wood*