hello- I too have had a lot of trouble with endurance for all of the time that I've played Horn seriously, so I guess I should talk like an expert on this subject. But I have, however, recently (since this fall) been able to improve my endurance and high range significantly, and I do believe that if I continue to work on what I have I will continue to improve. I hope sharing what has helped me can help some of you too.
My improvement has come from one thing: AIR. My teacher in high school was all concerned about embouchure. Everything was about embouchure, having the perfect set, placement, tight corners ..go read farkas . I think that all of this is very critical; but I have since learned that in the end, we play the horn with air, not with almost microscopic muscles around our mouth. Think about it, the horn is, what, around fifteen feet long or so? It has the largest bell and the smallest mouthpiece of all the brass (except tuba I guess) and is pointed backward. Certainly the diaphragm and all the anatomy involved with good breathing are stronger than little muscles. Humans, anatomically at least, are not designed to play the Horn. We do however, have a lot of lungs and diaphragm. Use that! I would venture to say that most people's endurance problems, given a basically proper embouchure, a good warmup, and decent practice habits, are due to bad air use. Start with a really deep breath -dont ever play a single note without taking a good full breath, your lungs wont get tired!- and then think of blowing each note all the way down the lead pipe, or imagine playing and Alphorn, where you have to blow all the way to the end of the horn. Just picturing this when I play helps me tremendously to use what is more efficient in the body. I also would venture to say that, in some ways, endurance is learned as much as it is built. There are many parallels between Horn playing and body building or athletic training; but the muscles involved are very different than those used in most aerobic or anaerobic exercise. I believe, at least for myself, that "building" endurance comes as much from learning air support, learning how to pace yourself (practice habits and warm-ups), and learning how to form and hold a proper, efficient embouchure, as it does from simple muscle development. Does this sound crazy??? Now that said, I myself have always had a hard time knowing how much to play everyday. (I am asking everyone here) Should one play until fatigue sets in every day, or every other day, or never??? When is one fatigued, when the high B-flat wont come out clear or when all you get is mush and leaking out the corners playing middle C? I have done a lot of work, under close supervision from my professor and peers, from Joe Singer's and Carmine Caruso's routines, and found them immensely beneficial. But, from previous experience, I worry about hurting myself with such work. I also find that if I do much of that "heavy-duty" stuff, I am shot for the rest of the day. Is 2-3 hours of rehearsals, practice, learning music and technique as useful as 20-30min of that kind of work ? I dunno. I hope something Ive said is helpful, but I may be completely wrong, I am no pro, just a freshman. Good luck, Dave M. ________________________________________________________________________ Try Juno Platinum for Free! Then, only $9.95/month! Unlimited Internet Access with 1GB of Email Storage. Visit http://www.juno.com/value to sign up today! _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
