Hier noch ein paar Gedanken zum Thema "Warming Up" von Roger Ingram.
Article on "warming up"
by Roger Ingram:
Warming-up, doing a routine, and practicing are three distinctly different actions. Each has a different goal. Let’s take a look at warming-up:
The term “warm-up” comes to us from the world of athletics. Playing the trumpet is obviously a physically strenuous undertaking. The degree of physical effort needed depends upon what kind of player you wish to be.
Warming-up means placing attention on a specific part of the body to increase blood flow to that area. This literally raises the temperature of the muscle or muscles targeted. Before attempting to play the trumpet, I suggest warming-up and preparing the body FIRST; I start my warm-up before taking my horn out of its case.
The trumpet is an inanimate object. It remains the same. Don't think about warming-up the trumpet; think about warming-up YOU.
Sometimes after a previous day's hard playing schedule, many brass players wake up with puffy, and sometimes swollen, lips and facial muscles (also referred to as one's "chops"). This is nothing new. It happens to all of us. Because of this, responses in the vibrating surfaces of the lips may be hampered due to all the possible stiffness, swelling, and puffiness. This is due to the lactate your body produces that coats the affected muscles during your sleeping hours. After a night’s sleep, however, lactate has done its job and needs to be eliminated.
The best way to "wash away" the lactate is by increasing blood flow to your chops, thus raising their temperature. This aids in freeing-up the vibrating surfaces of your lips.
Before playing, let’s get the body warmed-up FIRST. In doing this your first notes of the day will most likely feel and sound better than if you had not bothered to initially get your body going. This can also help to set-up a more positive psychological outlook for your playing session.
Fluttering:
In order to get needed blood flow to the chops, one needs to direct attention to this part of the body. Do this by fluttering the lips and face. Make this flutter happen by taking a full breath while keeping your lips slightly together with your face loose and relaxed. Then blow out through your mouth with moderate force. This causes the lips and face to vibrate freely. The resulting sound is similar to the way a horse would flutter after a good run.
Flutter for a minute or two, sustaining a continuous flutter for three or five second intervals. After this, roll and squeeze your lips together with moderate tension to see how they feel. If they still feel puffy, continue with the fluttering for a few more seconds. keep doing this until you start to feel the puffiness subside.
Buzzing:
After fluttering you may start to feel a bit of tingling in your chops. This is okay. This feeling is due to an increased blood flow to the lips. When you feel your lips and face getting close to normal, free-buzz your lips WITHOUT the mouthpiece for a few seconds. To create this buzz, put your lips together as if you were trying to spit out a watermelon seed. Take in a good breath, release your tongue, and "spit out" a continuous flow of air for 2 or 3 seconds, keeping your lips moderately tight. Let your aperture (air hole in the center of the lips) vibrate freely thus creating the buzzing sound. Experiment with lip tension. Find your “sweet spot.” Buzz any tone that you can easily produce. Then buzz for longer intervals, ascending and descending with other tones. Then try some tongue attacks while buzzing to start establishing more focus.
More internal compression is required in creating this buzz than with the fluttering. Doing this buzz helps the body to become acclimated to increased blood pressure. This acclimation DECREASES the chance of a black-out occurring with the possibility of beginning a playing engagement right away in the upper (or extreme upper) register.
Throughout this simple warm-up, concentrate on breathing as well. The family of muscles surrounding the abdomen, ribs, and back were taxed the previous day or night as well, and benefit from the movement of inhaling and exhaling air. Breathing well during the warm-up brings increased blood flow to these areas and helps to warm-up your breathing apparatus.
Next, simply blow air through your mouthpiece without buzzing for a second or two. Put the mouthpiece rim just inside your lips and blow warm air through the mouthpiece with moderate force. This will reacquaint you with the resistance of the bore (drill hole) of your mouthpiece for the day. This aids in helping the body adjust to the resistance and compression involved and needed with brass playing.
Mouthpiece Buzzing:
Next, place the mouthpiece on your lips and buzz the mouthpiece without the horn. Do a few intermittent single attacks. Start listening for tone center while buzzing. Then roll and squeeze your lips together again (without the mouthpiece) to check for any remaining puffiness. If you still don’t feel quite right, go back to fluttering and do a little more buzzing without the mouthpiece.
Next, assemble the horn and mouthpiece, and simply blow warm air through it without playing while simultaneously fingering the valves. This helps bring the horn up to body temperature.
Finding Tone Center:
For the last step, play a second line G and bend this note slightly sharp and flat a few times until you feel you have found the center of your note or “slot.” This will keep you from “riding” the high or low ends of your slots during a performance.
This little warm-up usually takes five to ten minutes to do, depending on how you felt when you woke up that day. It's a nice little approach to getting the body going again, while slowly bringing the mouthpiece and horn into play. After waking up with the possibility of my chops feeling stiff and/or puffy, I actually WANT to play by the time I finish this procedure. Usually, the first notes I actually play feel and sound good. This, of course, provides me with an acceptable level of comfort and confidence for any playing situation I'm about to engage in.
Roger
