8/24/07: Warm-Ups

Whether it takes you five minutes or fifty minutes, you probably find that it takes some time between the moment you take the horn out of the case and when it feels completely comfortable to play. Like a runner stretching before the race, we have to ease our muscles into the task at hand. It makes sense then, that our warm-up should be well thought out in order to have a safe and productive playing session.

But, if you’ve taken a look at my warm-up files, you’ve probably noticed that there is quite a bit of music there, surely more than it would take for someone to actually feel ready to play. So why, then, have I included so much music? This is because a good warm-up actually serves two purposes. One is what we discussed above; preparing us for a practice session, rehearsal, or performance. The other purpose of the warm-up is to provide us with a daily maintenance routine. Just like one cannot expect to improve steadily without regular practice, one cannot expect to make steady improvements in the high register, for example, without regular practice in the high range.

The daily warm-up, then, serves a very important role for the serious horn student. An effective warm-up will include all of the major aspects of playing that one can expect to see on a regular basis. These should include long tones, slurs, high playing, low playing, loud playing, soft playing, short articulations, long articulations, lip trills, multiple tonguing, stopped horn, etc.

Continued on the Next Page.

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