Practice routines: the case for variety

Even though I have favourite exercises, I try to avoid being too rigid with my warmup by playing exactly the same routine every day. Instead, I draw from a wide (and ever-expanding) variety of materials and trust a few basic principles to guide my approach:

Practice routine vs. warmup

A warmup is a set of exercises designed to prepare the body for more intense activities. Fergus McWilliam, a hornist formerly with the Berlin Philharmonic, argues we need just five minutes of “pamper time” every day before playing more strenuously.

A practice routine is a consistent, daily practice session focused on building fundamental skills. Practice routines usually include a warmup, but this is only a part of the practice routine, and often the warmup is “built in” during practice of specific skills (e.g., response, tone, range).

Exercises aren’t magic

Sometimes, an exercise will help us so much that it seems like magic. Many brass players cling tightly to these exercises and warn their students not to stray from them. Yes, there are lots of great exercises: for example, clever teachers like James Stamp have found ways to embed their teaching ideas within their exercises, eliminating the need for cumbersome instructions. But overall, exercises aren’t magical. A mediocre exercise – played mindfully with the right concepts in mind – will provide much more benefit than an excellent one played mindlessly.

Getting from Point A to Point B

Consistency is key for practice routines, but I focus more on a consistent outcome than a consistent set of exercises.Your practice routine is a means of getting yourself from how to sound at the start of the day (Point A) to how you need to play to function in your daily musical life (Point B).

Point A is a moving target: how we sound at the start of each day can vary wildly, influenced by factors like how we played yesterday, the “boring stuff” (sleep, diet, hydration, exercise) or our mental state. Sometimes our “good days” and “bad days” seem totally random. Paying attention to Point A, and calibrating our routine accordingly, helps develop consistency.

Food groups

Rather than a fixed set of exercises, I view my typical practice routine as hitting all my “food groups,” the basic fundamental skills needed to play well:

Response: getting the trumpet to speak consistently and accurately
Tone: beautiful sound
Range: connecting and extending our usable field of notes
Articulation: consistency and variety of tongued attacks
Dexterity: finger technique
Flexibility: connecting notes fluidly and accurately, especially through lip slurs

The wheel

To balance consistency and variety (and minimize decision fatigue) I use a simple rotation system in my practice routine:

Keys of the day:

Sunday, Wednesday: C, E-flat, F-sharp, A
Monday, Thursday: C-sharp, E, G, B-flat
Tuesday, Friday: D, F, A-flat, B
Saturday: free day, revisiting material from earlier in the week or trying out new exercises.

Where possible, I play any exercise in the keys of the day, which nicely balance high/low, easy/difficult. This system allows me to hit all 12 keys consistently while allowing time for practicing, not just running, exercises.

Exercise/etude rotation:

While working through a book of exercises or etudes, I aim for one a week. This progression is simple to manage while ensuring week-to-week variety.

I often encounter students who will spend months on one etude. I can assure you that hearing the same Charlier etude six weeks in a row is as torturous for your teacher as it is for you as a student. But many factors (rigid end-of-year jury requirements, relentless weekly lessons) conspire to produce this unhappy situation.

If you feel seen by the previous paragraph, first, take a look at your etude practice. Is there a spot in your daily practice dedicated to etudes? I like the start of the second session. Next, examine your practice efficiency and strategies for learning music. Finally, if learning your current etude in a week feels totally insurmountable (for example, requiring you to drop everything else), consider stepping back to an easier book that will allow you to digest more notes. Most music learning is pattern recognition, and digesting more music each week (alongside learning basic patterns like scales and arpeggios) will speed up your learning.