Best way to practice?

[doublebuzzing]

Check out 12:30 of this video. Phil Myers recommends spending 80% of your time on your strengths and only 20% of your time on your weaknesses. Interesting to think about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMpQUvig13Q" target="_blank

[southtubist]

I did an hour and a half in the morning on F tuba. I played long tones for a few minutes, and then played the rhythm section of the Arban's book- every single exercise every day with strict adherence to my metronome. Then, I would play random Bordogni's (or other similar etudes) for 45 minutes, again with a metronome. I would go through all 3 Bordogni books periodically in marathon sessions. After playing that stuff, I'd spend 15-20 minutes working on solos, F tuba excerpts, or quintet music.

I'd have rehearsals throughout the day, so I wouldn't play much then.

At night, I'd grab my CC tuba and spend another hour and a half playing it. Here I worked on scales/arpeggios for about a half hour, then I did various articulation studies across all the registers. After that, I'd practice low register, maybe for 10-15 minutes. The remaining time I spent either working on CC tuba excerpts or sight reading whatever I could get my hands on.

After those two sessions, I would usually quit for the day, especially if I had rehearsals. If I had no rehearsals that day, I would grab my F tuba and play solo literature for a while.

Now I don't have to practice very much anymore.

[JCalkin]

When I first pick up the tuba in the morning, I find that I don't usually execute as well as I did the previous day. So I "warm up" with some easy exercises (lip slurs, Bordogni, scales & arpeggios) to get my face "reconnected" to the horn, but it doesn't take very long unless I'm coning off of vacation.

Then I do all the fundamental exercises that many others refer to as "warm ups", but to me it's more about honing skills that need attention.

In other words:

The warm up is to get me playing as well as I did yesterday. The routine/fundamentals are to get me playing BETTER than I did yesterday.

As far as tackling and improving specific passages, I play what I call "The Penny Game." Five pennies on the stand, set the metronome to a tempo at which I can execute the passage well. Each time I do it to my standard of "correctly," a penny slides over to the other side of the stand. If I can slide all of the pennies over, then I can increase the speed of the metronome. If I fail, ALL of the pennies go back and I start over. It's a pain, but it guarantees that I'm getting enough slow practice on tough passages to execute them properly and not go "too fast too fast." I use this same techniques with my students and they hate it until they realize that it works.

[opus37]

Having not yet worked my way through Arban, I have a schedule where I do long tone, scale, rhythm, etude and song exercises from Arban. Then I move on to passages of music I'm working on for performance followed by playing something just for the fun of it. It usually takes me about an hour. This usually gives me some range work incorporated into the exercises.

[daflyingtubaman]

Usually I drink a glass of water then just sit comfortably in my chair, take a deep breath, and just hold an F for a few seconds, focusing on my tone and airflow, then do breathing excercises using the ArbanAfter that, I do a couple sections from Don Harry's "Warmups from Hell," focusing on tone and efficient breathing. After about 10 minutes on the warmups from hell, I'll go to a bordogni or two and play them repeatedly until I am satisfied with my tone and breathing. Then, I'll work on whatever else I'm working on such as solos or excerpts, with a focus on clean legato and buzzing.

[aparrish]

I just threw F tuba in the mix and i'm trying to balance growing and improving on my CC horn and learning F tuba. A routine that has been working for me so far (before the semester gets crazy) is:

I spend the first 5-10 minutes of my day (after my cup of coffee, of course) reflecting on the previous day's practice and what I accomplished/didn't quite accomplish. I also map out what I would like to improve and work on that day. I keep all of this in a journal and always write something at the top of every day; today the word was "clarity."

CC tuba:

Long Tones
David Vining Daily Routines (A slightly different 'routine' every day, ironically)
Bordogni (down the octave and then down 2 octaves, I play out of the Rochut/Bordogni Trombone book)
I spend about 3 or 4 days on 1 Bordogni.
Snedecor Low Etudes for Tuba
I do 1 of these a week.
Arban Characteristic Studies (Way under tempo, gradually increasing)
These take a little longer, I usually do 1 of these over the course of 2 weeks.

*Walk around and clear my mind.

Scales
Orchestral Excerpts (Usually 2 a day, listening to prominent recordings of the pieces often)

*Take a long break and think about something else for a while.

F Tuba:

Arban Basics (the "easy" stuff from the first sections of the book to really lock in learning F tuba)
Sighting Reading from the "Solo" section of the Arban
Bordogni (same etude as played earlier except as written in the trombone range)

*Take another break.

Work on Solo Literature (I like to find a good balance between playing stuff that is comfortable while keeping it under my fingers/ trying to brainstorm ways that I can improve it and working like a madman on stuff I don't play so well. But for working like a madman, I isolate a small section that I want to improve and play it at half tempo or slower. I write that tempo on a sheet of paper and every time I play it with no mistakes, I draw a line. After 3 successful, consecutive attempts, the lines that I draw make a triangle around the number and then I increase the tempo by 1-5 bpm and write the new tempo on the paper. It works for me, but others in connecting practice rooms probably get tired of hearing the same 2 measures over and over again.

*Depending on the intensity of the solo work, I either jump to the end of my practice or I play some more CC tuba.

I always like to spend the last 15-30 minutes of practice playing something that I really enjoy. Often times, I get bogged down spending countless hours working on tedious stuff and I forget to have fun. I always like to end with playing stuff such as tuba quartet pieces or solos that I have worked up really well and can just relax and play through. It's like every day I'm reminding myself of what hard work produces and that the end justifies the means all the more.

It's kind of late and my mind is jumbled, but I felt like sharing my perspective/routine.

[timothy42b]

http://www.bulletproofmusician.com/simp ... ive-seems/" target="_blank

This is not what I do but I'm starting to think about how it might work.