There are only two things you need to know…
I have played the horn since I was 10 ( after 3 years on the trumpet) and sometime in my mid 20’s I studied with Christopher Leuba, previously 1st horn of the Chicago Symphony. At my first lesson he said “Joan, there are only two things you need to know to play the horn. You need to know how to start the first note and you need to know how to get to the next note.” Done.
Sounds ridiculously simple but is absolutely true. Many brass players comment on my clean articulation and I have to credit playing Leuba’s warm-up interval studies every day for the last 40 odd years, with my abilities to start a note and get to the next one. Confidence in being accurate and being in control of how a note starts adds greatly to one’s ability to make great music. Knowing how to make excellent note connections is the difference between being a good player and being a great player. Just listen to the great performers on any instrument and pay attention to the note connections. The clarity and lack of “garbage” between the notes is a very distinct difference between the great, the good and the ugly.
The best way to gain this confidence is to practice methodically in a singing manner, an interval exercise of some sort. Mr. Leuba designed an exercise that you can modify to keep yourself interested that covers the TWO THINGS in one fell swoop. I love easy and fun and getting results all at the same time.
Pick one key a day so that you cover all 12 keys equally by doing them over the 12 days, then repeat back to the 1st key. The simple form of this exercise is to put your metronome on and always breathe in time on the final quarter note of the pulse to play on beat one of the next bar. You are in 4/4 time. I believe that playing a note is akin to hitting a baseball. You swing the bat and hit the ball in one motion. Mr. Leuba would get me to lick my lips at the beginning of that upbeat as I was starting my breath in and then PLAY on beat one. This sounds easy but most brass players are inconsistent about this approach and tend to hesitate and build up pressure as they go higher. With this exercise you are disciplining yourself to always approach a note in any register the same way. It takes courage I must say to do this on a high C entrance but in the heat of a performance you want that consistency in the practice room to hold up. In classical music respond to a conductor but in any music you respond to rhythm and time. If you hesitate as you go higher in your range you are setting yourself up for disaster in your articulation and you are also buying into being less confident up high. Using this exercise for consistency gives you a very secure approach and consistently reliable articulation in any register. You learn where your tongue has to be for that note.
Every note has a vibration i.e. A 440. That means that there is only one way to hear or play that note: that vibration has to happen. We do this by blowing the right air amount and speed into the horn. Your tongue just releases that correct air. That never changes from day to day. The note A is going to be that vibration. By practising starting the note in time with the correct tongue position and air for that note you can become consistent for that note. Do that on every note and you are good to go. Consistency is a musician’s ticket to confidence. You know it will happen every time, every day because you have practised it that way.
Don’t get overwhelmed. I do this exercise in all of 5 min. a day.
Quite elementary as you can see. You can also invert this and go up the scale. You can replace the first quarter with 2 eighth notes or 4 sixteenth notes for variation. But I would encourage you to do the very simple version first until you feel really confident about your results. Play it at a mf until it is exactly the way you want it. You can mess with variations of dynamic or articulations later. Do not stop at an octave.
I have a game I play around this. Like baseball, 3 attempts and I’m out. So I go to the octave interval and if that is great, I keep expanding the interval. Keep going until you miss it 3x’s. You are officially out. Write that interval down somewhere and when you return to that key in 12 days you can see where you got to and then try to beat your own interval. Doing it more than 3x’s to get it the way you want just keeps you learning how not to do it.
I’m adding a variation for you that I call the Policeman Exercise. That is because when I’m warming up this exercise tells me how well everything is working. I cannot play this exercise properly unless my breath support is working really well. I cannot get a clean articulation or note connection in this exercise unless I am supporting the air properly. Again I use the 3x’s and I’m out game. If my air support is working properly this exercise is EFFORTLESS to play. I love effortless because when I am in the heat of the battle I want to be focussing on the music, the phrasing the colour, the blend, the solo passages and the stuff going on around me. I don’t want to be worrying about whether I’m going to HIT the note or get to the next one OK.
Leuba was completely right. Brass playing isn’t that difficult but you have to have some basic things in place to play consistently for your own enjoyment and for those you play for. No audience member wants to pay money to hear someone KACK all over a beautiful passage. I believe my job is to help the listener relax and be changed by the music. I can only do this by being completely immersed in it myself. If there is a technical problem I want to be sure I have it covered before I get on stage.
Hope this helps with your enjoyment of playing. Keep singing and making the world a better place through your music making.