The White Padded Room
Have you ever just felt like you were going to go CRAZY while practicing?
Warm-Ups
Jail
Lessons
Bart
Books
Home
Warm Ups
Some warm up routines that I've been tought over the last few years.
High School:
  • Put the horn together, and blow a few notes so that the instrument warms up and you can tune it.
My First Private Teacher:
  • Start with exercise #18, 3 note slurs, from the Remington book, but invert them, starting on the high note.
  • Then various other lip trill exercises to build up the chops.
Dr. Hal Reynolds:
  • Exercise #1 from the Remington book, long tones.
  • Scale in any key, in ensembles, divide notes to make chords.
  • In an ensemble, divide into three groups. Play the notes of a major chord, then change one group at a time going down a half step, going through major, minor and diminished chords.
  • He's got lots more, but this is all I could remember.
Fred Boyd:
  • Play a Bb scale with the best sound possible. Repeat in any octave.
  • Exercise #3 from the Remington book, soft tonguing-legato.
  • Six note series, Ex. #49 in Remington, starting on B natural above pedal for basses.
Other stuff I've learned:
  • I've learned that simply buzzing the mouthpiece for a while can do wonders.
  • What I usually do is buzz for a couple of minutes, but I've already done this for a good 15 minutes before I left to go down to the practice rooms.
  • Then I proceed to do the Boyd warm up. It's not very demanding to start out with, and you get a positive feeling after starting with a great sound.
  • The final part of my "warm up" is to do some flexibility exercies, and strength building, but not enough to kill your chops.
Books
A small list of the books that I have used, and am using.
New Modern Method for the Bass Trombone
Eliezer Aharoni put together "The Bible" of bass trombone books. It teaches how to use the valves, and just about any possible combination of tunings. Definitely worth every cent.
The Remington Warm-Up Studdies
Edited by Donald Hunsberger, you get all of the exercises, and explanations of how and why to practice them directly from "The Chief." When you're done with this book, you should be able to do push-ups with your lips.
Melodious Etudes for Trombone
Joannes Rochut took these from the "Vocalises of Marco Bordogni," he put them together and put his own name on them. These etudes are essential to the developing trombonist. They can be used to work on any aspect of trombone playing.
The following books I don't use with my teachers, but are valueable, and I work on them when I have time.
Arban's famous Method for Trombone
It's a little out dated, and most teachers don't like using this, but the exercises are valueable, and should be looked at.
Sixty Selected Studies for Trombone
By C. Kopprasch. I haven't used this much, but the exercises are demanding, and if I can get through these, I know I'm having a good day. This book also introduces tenor and alto clefs.
Home Page Me Email Me