What am I doing wrong???

[crzytptman]

First of all, I agree with Bill - that's not enough practice time. Then, I feel the comments from kramergfy are almost 180 degrees from correct, as John said with his .

[afp]

I don't know what the required amount of practice time is, but I do know you need to do it when you are young. There is no way can practice 3 hrs a day now. I leave for work between 6:30 and 7:00 and get home between 5:30 and 7:30. Then I have the never ending list of tasks all middle-aged dads have. There just isn't enough time to get everything done that has to be done.

However, if you build a strong set of skills now they will be easier to maintain when you get older and have a lot less time.
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[trumpet57]

Check out youtube.com. You can get some pretty good adive (free lessons) there. I picked up some great tips that have helped me alot. One video is of Jim Manley with (I think) one of the trumpet players from the Airmen of Note. He talks about and demonstrates how little air it actually takes to play high notes. I was amazed how true it was when I tried what I saw in the practice room. There is another video with one of the guys from the Airmen of Note talking about breathing. He said, there are two steps with breathing. Step one is breath in, the second is breath out. Many palyers add a third betwen these two called hold. What this does is close your throat interupting the flow of air. I had been doing this third step since day one. It is taking some time to change this bad habit but this little tidbit in conjunction with not over blowing (trying to pump too much air through the little hole in the mouthpiece) has made significant improvements in my endurance, ease in playing, increase in range and produces a great cutting lead sound. Best of all, these were free lessons. I play on a 1964 King Silver Flair with a Marcinkiewicz, Roger Ingrham mouthpiece.

[Fleebat]

First of all, clear your mind of all the "do this/do that" stuff for a minute, and consider the guys who nail the high range day-in, day-out... for money. Watch clips of Bergeron, Englebright, Sandoval, Ingram, Bogart, Snooky, et al. You will notice that they all seem pretty relaxed. A nice fat G, from them, typically doesn't come with a scrunched face, a more-rigid posture, or, in fact, any drastic physical change from notes an octave lower. A relaxed approach is what consistently works for the vast majority of successful lead players.

(Recommended that you find the Michael Manley youtube vid about breathing low, to see how little it actually takes to play high).

Secondly, if you study with or research material from these guys, you'll very rarely encounter ideas like "do this with your XXXX" or "move your XXXX muscles like..." You will hear about taking a nice, full breath, playing "through" every note, etc. AND you will hear about focused, consistent time in the practice room.

I always think that anyone who asks "how much practice time does it take" needs to first of all take time to adjust their perspective and attitude (no offense). The guys who get really good - whether with high notes, or improv, or symphonic playing, or in any style, are typically the guys who - at least in their formative years - have to MAKE themselves put the horn down. Yes, you can overpractice to the point of doing more harm than good if you're doing stupid things. But you have a long, long way to go before that could happen.

The comeback player, or the part-timer wanting to get to the next level who actually accomplishes his goals is typically the kind of guy whose family has to MAKE him stop playing so he can eat dinner. He's nearly late for his day job sometimes because he couldn't put the horn down. He has no idea what sitcoms are currently on the air because... you guessed it. Note here that practice can include transcribing, study, etc. Not saying you should have the horn on your face 8 hours a day. (However, I regularly put in four or more hours, and you'll find a lot of guys at schools like Indiana who do even more). The point is...

Non-productive outlook: "How much of my time and effort do I have to trade or invest to be able to play like I want to play?"

Really productive outlook: "Man, I can't wait to feel that great, easy, "power steering" thing that happens after I finish my Claude Gordon long tones!"

or

"Cool! I've got a complete two hours of free time here! I can do my whole Adam-inspired routine, rest a little, then finish memorizing 'Joy Spring.'"

or

"Wow, those Reinhart exercises are tough! I'd better have a glass of water & take twenty minutes or so before I look at that Phat Band transcription!"

The thing is, you want to develop an attitude that says, "every minute I spend on focused, sensible practice gets me closer to playing the daylights out of this horn. I can't wait to spend my next practice minutes!"

You can find world-class players - lead, big-band, pop, combo jazz... any style - who got there through almost any good teacher's method. The thing they all have in common is FOCUSED TIME WITH THE HORN ON THEIR FACES, WITH ATTENTION TO IMPROVEMENT. NOT a well-tracked record of how much time they "had" to put in.

That said, if you've got a good G sometimes, you're likely doing plenty right, so your original question, "What am I doing wrong" is probably moot. Very likely, what's up is that you're impatient for development. Let's say that again: development.

Let's use an analogy; say, tennis.

A really good teaching tennis pro can tell you almost exactly what to do with every part of your body. Backhand like this. Keep your forearm like that, swing from here. Make sure your body is placed like this or that to the path of the ball. Tweak your grip this way, make sure your leading foot is like this for the overhead, and your back foot like that. And on, and on, and on.

But if a pro gave you all that information, and you understood it, even worked on it for a bit until you could physically do the things he prescribed, would you be ready for Wimbledon? Nope. That would come only after you've put in whatever time you needed to put in to realize your personal potential - while applying all those "right" ideas from the pro. Not to mention the time it took you to absorb it all so it was second nature. And for each of us, that amount of time is different. Also, "time," in terms of development, isn't measured in hours-per-day. Development is seen in weeks, months, years - of consistent, FOCUSED practice. You can get a big hint about what that means just by looking at the titles of the major method books; a large number have "daily" somewhere in the title. Borrowing a term from Mr. Adam, all the great methods advocate some kind of daily routine.

Note: A small bit of development is strength - great players, from Herseth to Sandoval to Brecker to Hargrove, will tell you that it doesn't take much physical, chop strength (muscular strength). It's about flow, about learning to "allow" the system to work like you want it to. Struggling players have the look of someone who's trying to steer a tractor. Players who've got it happening tend to look more like they're driving a new Mercedes. They're "letting" it happen as much as "making" it happen. And that takes... yup... time. Read "Zen In The Art of Archery," and "Effortless Mastery."

If you'd been playing for years and you were crapping out at high C, you might have good reason to re-visit the minutia of what you're doing physically. But I would bet you just need to work on getting a "when can I practice" mindset that replaces the "how much do I have to practice" pattern, focus on playing with a great sound and good air support (which has nothing to do with blowing harder), and keeping your mind on the idea of development.

You're looking for a "thing" you can "do" to make your goal happen. But reaching a goal is almost never a matter of flipping some kind of switch, or changing one physical element. It's usually arrived at through stages of growth.

My two cents.

Rusty Russell

[Billy B]

Good stuff Rusty. Much of what you say are things that a teacher does to guide a student. I often have students write out their daily schedule. Then we write in practice time. In about three weeks this becomes a habit that becomes sorely missed by the student if they stray from the schedule. At this point they have become self motivated and my job becomes a piece of cake.
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Bill Bergren
Obstacles are what appear when you take your eye off of the goal.
www.synergyjazz.org

[Fleebat]

I should mention that I don't advocate timing practice sessions. I know some do, and succeed that way, but I don't.

If I (or a student I'm working with) sits down with the idea that we'll put in, say, an hour, it's much easier to fall into the mindset of putting in time. That's how prisoners view things. How you feel when you're waiting in line at the driver's license station. It's not conducive to accomplishing things (again, for me).

Rather, I advocate goal-oriented practice. I sit down with the idea of cleaning up an Arban study - getting it to a certain point. Or playing a complex line over a half-diminished chord, for example, smoothly in every key. Smoothing out a flexibility study from "Flexus." Playing a Randy Brecker transcription better. Cleaner. Without struggle. Faster. Whatever. The mindset that grows in that way is one in which you're accomplishing something musical. And it fosters development. And it turns you into the kind of player who has a hard time putting the horn down.

All this is, of course, after I've played through my routine (I'm an Adam follower). And I usually have more goals on the list than I can get to, even though I have a lot of time to practice.

I haven't watched the clock while practicing since I was a real little guy (and I'm a certified geeze).

Edit: That last statement wasn't exactly true. I do watch the clock sometimes, but it's more like, "Dang... I can only play twenty more minutes, and then I've got to take off for that client meeting."

The part about being a geeze though... that's absolutely true.

RR

[The Kraken]

Rusty Russell

Very sound take !!!

Wise Insight!

I enjoyed your RUSTY Rant, appreciated.
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Comback player start date: 9/06/2009
Comeback Player end date: Till Death Do Us Part

[Fleebat]

Well, thanks. I'm glad. I kick myself sometimes because it seems everything I post here is a rant. Hope everyone knows it's well-intentioned.

RR

[jhopkins7]

From my experience, regimented practice in terms of allocating specified time to specific exercises has its benefits. Upon starting college, I was in the habit of practicing for huge amounts of time, but with no real plan. My teacher had me write down everything I did, and time invested in it. He then came up with a very strict regiment of "10 minutes on Clarke...then rest...10 minutes on flow studies...then rest...etc.". I wrestled with this through a semester or two, but eventually got into a very, very solid routine. Then, my teacher said "Take that whole thing, and toss it out. You've learned how to be disciplined and focused in allocating time to specific exercises. Now, take that discipline and focus and instead apply it to specific RESULTS. Don't spend 20 minutes on excerpts...spend 20 minutes on getting that excerpt to sound like you want it to sound. If you get there in 10, then move on to the next RESULT you want to achieve". Not suprisingly, this led to intelligent, results-oriented practice. My 2 cents, for what it is worth, is that a strict regimen is a wonderful tool to develop intelligent, meaningful practice habits...and intelligent, meaningful practice habits yield the ability to play like each of us wants to play, however that may be.
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[afp]

[Fleebat]

[fraserhutch]

Wow, I want a table of contents, please
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[Fleebat]

No problem. I'll send you a download link for $39.95.

RR

[John Mohan]

[dbacon]

"If you have a problem with getting tense when taking a full breath, I don't think the solution is to avoid taking full breaths, I think the solution is to learn to be relaxed and full at the same time."

This is an excellent point...you have to fill up a lot of times no matter what...long phrase FFF...over time you have to develop the skill of inhale full and not fight with the exhale muscles....move air with energy and not fight the inhale system....isometric tension, muscle systems working in opposition to each other...learn how to not under or over blow....called breath control!
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Dave Bacon
Mesa Community College
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[kramergfy]

...
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"I'm 73 and I'm still learning." - Maurice Murphy

[afp]

[quote="Fleebat"]

[LeeC]