The Auto-Pilot Warm Up

It's so familiar for me to stand in a band room of any sort and hear everyone warm up at the same time.  It seems like wherever I go, that sound always sounds the same.  The fact is that many people's individual warm up routine also sounds the same each time as well. 

I've started to get requests for me to cover certain topics in my blog now that I have a few regular readers.  One of those questions is about developing volume.  My thought is that the best way to develop more volume (or less volume) is through the warm up.  Many people warm up at mezzo something-or-other.  We are what we eat, er, play.  If you warm up every day in the mezzo range, you will become very comfortable and good at playing in the mezzo range.  If you push the dynamic level to a higher level during your warm up, you'll become better at playing all around in that higher volume level.  Disclaimer: monitor your intonation and support when you change dynamic levels in your warm up.  Practicing loud, out of tune splats will not make you better at playing loudly; it will make you better at producing loud, out of tune splats!

To elaborate more on this, here are some ideas on how to incorporate dynamics into the warm up:

During Long Tones
Disclaimer: Beware of playing long tones at loud dynamics for a long time, especially while playing high long tones.

• Crescendo and decrescendo during the long tones so that you reach either extreme on each note or every other note.
• Play loud long tones in the low range where its easy to feel the bagpipe feeling of emptying the lungs evenly.  Keep each tone steady as possible and use a tuner to make sure that it stays in tune.
• Play long tones as quietly as possible.  Work on eliminating the fuzzy sound that occurs at the lower limit of your own dynamic range.

During Clark Studies
Disclaimer: If you read the actual text in the Clark book, it tells the musician to play these studies as quietly as possible.  They're not kidding, you can hurt your lips if you play these too loudly for too long.

• Play them as quietly as possible and work on eliminating the ghost notes that happen when playing at the very lower limit of your own dynamic range.

During Lip Slurs

• Play the whole lip slur at either the upper or lower limit of your own dynamic range.

• Crescendo or decrescendo the whole lip slur, starting in one dynamic and moving to the other.

During Lyrical Warm Ups

• Play the whole melody at either the upper or lower limit to your own dynamic range.
• If the melody doesn't have dynamics, write them in.  Exaggerate them first and then settle into a normal dynamic range.

 I hope these ideas help with developing a comfort with playing in a louder or softer dynamic range.  If anyone else has any blog ideas or questions they would like answered in a blog, email me or comment on a post!

Finding My Rhythm

My blog is starting to develop its own rhythm.  That sentence actually fits pretty well with a music blog!  I tend to switch between articles that share the bit of knowledge I have about music and how to become a better musician with views from my little niche of music.  I also seem to be developing blog readers who like reading about these things.  It's a good match, and I'm so excited that the feedback I've been getting is positive!  I've even been getting requests for blogs on certain pedagogical topics.  I haven't forgotten to write them, it's just that with a wedding a month away, I might not get to it right now.

Now that I've settled into blogging and have started following other people's blogs, I have found some blogs that follow the same topics that I do.  One of those blogs is the one that my good friend from the Royal Northern College of Music writes.  She's currently a doctoral tuba student at the University of Iowa.  She has scholarly entries interspersed between quotes and photos that relate to music.  It's a good mix of entries that she wrote herself and entries that she's found elsewhere.  Her blog features entries on the friendship between Vaughn Williams and Ravel, the process of recording all of the national anthems for the olymics, and the best rehearsal techniques for a brass ensemble.  She even has a practice pie chart!  I think everyone should flood her blog this week and leave a comment on your favorite entry.  Tell her Amy sent you!

Kate Wohlman: Musician and Overthinker