I am a big believer in the power of a good, methodical warmup. Regardless of your age or ability, a good, daily warmup routine can help you build new skills more quickly and maintain the skills you’ve already mastered.
Ideally, I would really like to be able to spend about an hour on a good, methodical warmup, but let’s face it- We don’t always have time for that. When you can’t spend that much time, find a few good exercises that get your air flowing, your ears listening and your face feeling limber again.
I like to warmup first thing in the morning, as early as possible. If I do this, I know that if I get called to do some other task during the day- I will have at least touched the horn and done my routine. Nothing is worse that the feeling you get when it’s 10pm and you realize you haven’t touched the horn all day. Do it early and it’s done.
When you sit down to warm up, what should your goals be? A-HA! Goals are good. Have them. Work towards them. Never sit down to practice without having a clear goal of what you wish to accomplish. That’s just logging time for the sake of logging time…And that’s not getting you anywhere.
When I sit down to warm up, I want to: 1)Get my breathing apparatus moving huge amounts of slow, warm air, 2) Get my fingers and chops coordinated with my breathing, 3)Touch on every type of music I’m likely to encounter. I want to play through every key, every articulation, every dynamic across the entire range of my instrument.
A typical warmup session for me will begin with stretching. The tuba is a particularly physical instrument to play, so to avoid sore muscles in my back, shoulders and elsewhere, I typically do some sort of stretching. If you’re new to stretching, or haven’t done it since middle school gym class, I would recommend Bob Anderson’s Stretching Book or a series of yoga DVD’s by Rodney Yee. I would do this for no more than five or ten minutes. You want to be in a relaxed state before you begin to play. Being physically relaxed will help many aspects of your playing when you pick up the horn.
After stretching, I like to do about five minutes of breathing exercises. I do not recommend any more time spent on this activity, because there is a risk of working towards “being a good breather” instead of becoming a great musician. My main breathing exercise consists of three sets of multiple-rep “blows” through the horn, with and without valves depressed. Each set is at a different tempo. The first set is at quarter note = 60. The second set is identical to the first, but at quarter note =120. The third set is at quarter note=35. There are many pauses throughout this routine, for both reflection as well as regaining consciousness. All breathing should be as relaxed as possible and breathe to absolute capacity (and then some) every time you take a breath.
As tuba players, our ultimate goal should be to move huge amounts of slow, warm air while making great music. That should be on the top of the idea pile while you do the breathing exercise.
After breathing, I like to do a little mouthpiece buzzing. Again, not too much, since buzzing the mouthpiece is so much more efficient than playing the instrument- it also places more stress on your facial muscles. You should rest your chops one minute for every thirty seconds of buzzing you do. Also, try to always buzz at a piano or some other pitch source. Buzzing while using the piano as a pitch reference will help you engage your ears to match pitch and provide a reference for “where the heck you are” range-wise.
After buzzing, I go into a long-tone routine. The focus should be to produce a beautiful sound, taking in as much air as possible every time you breathe. It’s during the variations on the long-tone exercise that I like to add different articulations to my routine.
Articulations…..When you think about it, brass players are capable of many more different types of articulations than we actually practice or even think about every day. Of course, we have marcato and legato…But what about pure legato, legato tongue, marcato sostenuto, forte-piano, sforzando, orchestral accent, staccattissimo and breath articulations? I think that incorporating these articulations into your daily routine will help you master each of them while breaking up the monotony of your long-tones and “Remington”-type exercises.
I like to go through all the keys and finger patterns in my warmup. One of my favorite exercises is what I call the “diatonic scale exercise”….You play a major scale up and down in one octave- then you start on the supertonic, going up and down in one octave, but you keep the same key signature as tonic. Go all the way up to tonic again and arpeggiate back down to the first tonic.
I like to work on intonation with a series of arpeggios in all the keys. At the same time, I’m listening to my sound and keeping my breathing slow and relaxed. I do, from time to time, play along with a drone during my practice time to work on listening and putting notes right where they need to be, pitch-wise.
Also, we have too many technological resources at our disposal for anyone to have an excuse to not record themselves on a regular basis. Record yourself. Listen to the recording. Repeat. Listen. Improve. Repeat.
I have typed out a few exercises from my daily warmup routine in bass clef for tuba and trombone/euphonium those of you who would like to try it out. There are many more exercises than I’ve mentioned here. I can’t claim to be the originator of the exercises I do- I’ve just collected many exercises and concepts that were introduced to me by some of the fantastic teachers I’ve had along my journey: John Stevens, Andrew Oppenheim, Roger Bobo and Sande MacMorran. I also highly recommend the James Stamp Trumpet Warm Up Book, Roger Bobo’s Mastering the Tuba Book and The Brass Gym.
Just a little addendum to Sean’s idea of spending some time at the keyboard in regard to a reference for pitch and register when mouthpiece buzzing: When faced with those times when a keyboard may not be available, you can turn to the mouthpiece itself for a reference. That audible “pop” your mouthpiece makes when you slap the palm of your hand on the rim/cup produces an identifiable pitch that can be used as a reference. For example, a Conn-Helleberg(standard) produces an “Ab”. The Conn 2 and Helleberg 7B produces an “A”. The Bach 18 (and most “18″ copies) “pops” a “G”. These pitches are not always “exact”, but they form a reference point that relieves one from carrying around a tuning fork or relying entirely on the keyboard to give one some direction as to what pitch they are playing. Pop your OWN mouthpiece and determine what pitch IT’s producing, and practice away!
Unaided by the identifiable idea of your pitch, you will PROBABLY find you are actually playing higher than you think you are. There CAN be an “upside” to this – You’ll probably find the production of your higher register notes much easier after such a “session” of “guessing where you’re at” register-wise. Keep the mouthpiece playing fun, and focus on tunes and music rather than drill forms. There will always be plenty of room for that when the mouthpiece finally gets placed in the horn.