My students know that I am very fond of exercises. Little, isolated pesky difficulties. I like to isolate problems in my playing, myself. I turn everything in to an exercise. That can be beneficial, but the danger is that you loose a musical view on playing.
For this reason I, myself, love to play easy tunes (relatively easy: depending on your level of playing of course). That way I can still concentrate on flaws in my playing, but play music in the same time. Most of the time, the flow of the music helps to diminish technical problems. If you can play a simple tune very musically, it is (at least to me) very satisfactory in both my obsession with exercises and my musical sense. In other words, in my practice room, I don't have to play difficult music to improve my playing or to satisfy my musical needs. If you can play a relatively easy tune correct, technically and musically, that can be the best fundament to play everything a little bit better: the system is the same, the techniques are the same and the musical feeling is the same.
A few books that I like very much in this area are Bel Canto for Trumpet (Concone-stuff, but with a play-along CD) and Trumpet Sonority by Allen Vizzutti.
It also works the other way around: playing a simple exercise as musical as you can. Take Colin's Lip Flexibilities and treat them as the most beautiful piece ever. That makes them easier to play, and a lot more fun, too.
I do this Bert, I find if I practice exercises too much I become what I call over technicalised in my playing. My warm up usually only takes me about ten minutes and I change or alternate with very similar warm up exercises ever day. I will then blow Summertime in a low key and then move up a few keys. I then take tunes like "The Four Seasons" or "El Choclo" to use for my tonging exercises. Music is supposed to be fun not boring and or monotonous. Why play exercises when there are so many fine tunes out there that will do the same thing. If I was a professional trumpeter I don't think I would get a gig to play through the Arban's. I love players like Ack Van Rooyen and Chris Botti and anyone who plays nice melodies.
ReplyDeleteThank you Richard Autenzio