Before we get started, a quick note to say I learned this from the great Chris LaBarbera (look him up on YouTube, if you're unfamiliar!), and it's basically a condensed version of Donald Reinhardt's famous 'Warm Up 57.' I'm a big fan of Donald Reinhardt, his approach to brass playing is genius, in my opinion, and a big chunk of my teaching is heavily influenced by Donald Reinhardt, as well as two of his students, Chris LaBarbera and Doug Elliott, both amazing players and teachers in their own right.
We've all been there... The sneaky itinerary change that you missed, which has you arriving only a few minutes before the baton comes down at a rehearsal! What do you do? It's my opinion that every musician needs something they can turn to in such a scenario, a "quick fix" to get your face ship-shape and ready to rock in as little time as possible.
Is this ever going to replace a proper warm-up? No, but again, they serve very different purposes. This routine contains the same exercises and material that I use in my "proper" warm-up, but everything's condensed down so I only touch upon various aspects of playing, rather than indulging in a nice long exercise for each aspect.
Put simply, a basic routine should cover these things:
Something high
Something low
Something loud
Something soft
Something tongued
Something slurred
Seems like a lot, doesn't it? But it's amazing what you can get done in a very small amount of time and with very few exercises, and you can certainly kill more than one proverbial bird with the same proverbial stone...
Let's get started!
Exercise No.1 - The Spiderweb:
1.1
Few pointers for the above exercise, follow diligently the 'Hoo' articulation throughout! Breath articulations are one of the quickest ways to get your lips back to their optimal response position. The tongue can be used to "bump-start" some unresponsive lips, so get rid of it and let the lips work! Each middle C should feel easier and quicker to respond as the exercise progresses. If your present development doesn't allow for a comfortable and easy Top C, then stop somewhere beforehand, it's fine! This exercise shouldn't be hard or forceful, and you should stop and rest as soon as it becomes so.
No.2 - Flexibilities:
The most crucial aspects for the below flexibility exercises are the articulations and dynamics. Flexibilities just blasted at forte with no control serve very little purpose, in my opinion! Tonguing first then slurring ensures that the lips are working correctly before we start to slur, just so we don't encourage any exaggerated lip movement! The dynamics are for developing control of the aperture. Crescendoing as you ascend and diminuendoing as you descend are great rules to follow for flexibilities in general, and you'll probably find it challenging if you've not done it before! Make sure you rest for as long as the exercise took to play at the end of each exercise, where it's marked 'Rest!' You don't have to play all four exercises if you're super pressed for time, or if some are a bit out of reach in terms of your ability; just play the ones which happen with the least stress!
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
No.3 - Range:
I'll preface this exercise with a big warning... Do not push and do not force! We need to be gentle, especially when working with a restricted timeframe. We want to make things easier not harder, so we need to approach the following exercise carefully and appropriately. Alter the pitches to suit your current range development if you need to; if your range caps out around a top C, or even a top G, then alter the exercise so that you gradually work chromatically up to that. Make sure you play the four "juicy" pedal Cs at the end to warm down, then rest as much as you can before diving into rehearsal!
3.1
With the explanations, this can look like quite a lengthy warm up, but I can complete this in about ten minutes, sometimes less depending on how fast I play the exercises. Your rest time will obviously be less if you play the flexibilities a bit quicker!
Here's the warmup as a PDF if you want something easier to follow!
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