Playing too much trumpet?

[Insensato]

Over the course of this summer, I definitely feel as though I've played "too much" trumpet (if that can even be said). I typically would practice for about 2 hours (spread over 3 or so sessions) every single day of mainly fundamental exercises (I think my partial downfall was falling out of balance with a lack of etudes, excerpts, moving throughout the full range of the instrument etc.). Things felt pretty good for a while, but eventually it seemed as though I HAD to work each day on the fundamentals I was doing before to simply set my playing at the "standard" level.

However the thing that I find interesting is that after practicing fundamentals, on occasion my sound would feel GREAT--everything would seem to line up. However during days following the "great" days, my playing would feel absolutely horrible--it would be a struggle to play above the staff (I have a typical playable range up to high D, everything beyond that is a waste of time for me to focus my energy on right now), articulating notes freely and without hesitation (holding in air and clenching my face) would be difficult, my endurance would greatly suffer etc.

Right now, I think I'm slowly improving from this problem-cycle that I developed over the summer, but things are still really difficult. I feel as though the instrument is becoming more and more difficult to play the more I practice.

I've always been told to go back to fundamentals to help periods of awful trumpet playing, but it seems as though the practice (or perhaps over-practice) of fundamentals is what caused the issue in the first place. So throughout this summer, I guess I was in a perpetual downfall of trying to fix a problem with the initial cause of the problem.

Does anyone have any input on this? Was I over-practicing, or was I just falling out of balance as a trumpet player? Anyone have any advice on what to add or subtract from my routine to help speed up falling into "proper" trumpet playing once again? Would taking a day or two off from trumpet playing drastically help me? (I've really been trying for the past year to play the horn every single day, and I worry that taking even a day off might slow down my progress)

I feel as though it's sometimes really tough to monitor HOW much practice will be the most beneficial--to go for a 2-3 hour day or to stick to 30 minutes PARTICULARLY with throwing in gigs, calls etc.

Any advice is greatly appreciated.
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Every Villain Is Lemons

[jhatpro]

I think most players face this challenge to some extent. You may wish to try alternating heavy and light practice days and possibly going to more shorter sessions on your heavy days.

Remember that trumpet playing is a lot like sports: if you lift weights or run hard every day you're constantly breaking muscle down without giving it a chance to rebuild.
_________________
Jim Hatfield

"The notes are there - find them.� Mingus

2021 Martinus Geelan Custom
2005 Bach 180-72R
1965 Getzen Eterna Severinsen
1946 Conn Victor
1998 Scodwell flugel
1986 Bach 181 cornet
1954 Conn 80A cornet
2002 Getzen bugle

[brassjunky]

[jscahoy]

[zaferis]

[dstdenis]

I try to include three types of things in my practice: warm up, fundamentals, and material, which is a catch-all for etudes and performance music.

The difference between fundamentals and material is that fundamental exercises involve short bursts of playing, often played in one breath, followed by a pause to rest, then the same thing in a different key. Material, on the other hand, involves extended playing, for example, an etude that's one page long.

Some of my shorter practice sessions include just warm up and fundamentals, no material. But if I practiced that way for an extended period of time, I think my playing would get worse. I need to work on material to develop and maintain strength, breath control, and all that.

It sounds like your summer practice hasn't included as much work on material, and maybe that's why you've seen a decline in some aspects of your playing.

On related subject, it's conventional wisdom to practice in shorter sessions throughout the day. I seem to be the exception to that rule. If I do that, I sometimes find myself wearing down. I need more recovery time, so I do better playing twice a day, or sometimes just once a day if I've had some heavy playing. This gives me more time to rest and recover so I feel fresh the next time I play. I rarely take a day off, but I sometimes play just once a day to allow more time for recovery. YMMV, of course.
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Bb Yamaha Xeno 8335IIS
Cornet Getzen Custom 3850S
Flugelhorn Courtois 155R
Piccolo Stomvi

[McVouty]

I've definitely been guilty of that, so can sympathize.

I think I overcompensated when I sent from mainly playing music to a more disciplined practice schedule. I think it helps to remind ourselves that the reason we practice fundamentals is to enable ourselves to make music.

For example, I'm working on Fanfare for the common man at at the moment. As part of my prep I am warming up with a healthy dose of lip flexibilities ala Collins etc. When I play the Copeland, I try and make sure I get that 'feel' for smooth and easy transitions in the upper register. If it slips (and it often does towards the end) then I go back to the lip flex to make sure that I 'relearn' the feeling I need to have at that point in the performance.

In my younger days I would have just bashed away on the lip flex until tired (no pain no gain ), thinking that my work was done and tomorrows performance would sound great......

[bike&ed]

IMHO it's easy, even common, to practice too much, or perhaps more accurately to practice ineffectively. Most of the top symphonic and lead/scream type of players I know (and know of) spend most of their time practicing softly, and in the middle and lower registers. Basically they are always striving for purity of tone, and for making their whole physical/mental/psychological performing system work as smoothly, easily, and naturally as possible. That way playing loud/high/aggressive generally happens very naturally as well...

[chapahi]

Sometimes the chops are simply worn out. Try chopsaver or vitamin E cream to revitalizes the lip tissues.
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Sima, Kanstul 1525 Flugel and Kanstul pocket trumpet. Olds Super

[chuck in ny]

might be giving yourself about double the face time that you need. you can build up to more practice time, slowly.
we've all done it. it sounds like your practice is well rounded and you simply need less of it. the trumpet is like taking drugs, it feels so good to do it that you don't want to stop. as with substance abuse, take measured doses.

[PakWaan]

[jungledoc]

I hesitate to jump into this as I am relatively novice in regard to trumpet playing, but trumpet playing has many elements in common with strength training, which has been my main hobby for many years, and of which I have been a fairly serious student. I think there are lessons to be gained from a knowledge of strength training that can be helpful here.

One basic fact of physiology is that strength is gained, not during exercise, but during rest. The exercise "breaks down" muscle, providing the stimulus for muscle growth that occur during rest. Every little cycle of exercise involves a brief loss of strength (as we all notice easily when we play too long at a time), followed by a gain in strength that exceeds the previous strength level. This may take from a few hours to a few days to occur. The ideal time for the next bout of exercise is just when that peak is occurring--that way the next peak sort of adds on to the previous one. If, however, more exercise comes too soon, before the muscles are fully recovered, the additional breakdown leads, not to gain, but to loss.

In general, we can exercise small muscles more often than large muscles. Most people who strength train will tell you that they can do chin-ups every day, but they can do deadlifts no more often than every few days, in some cases every week or two. The muscles we use in playing a brass instrument are among the smallest in the body, and for the most part a few hours rest is adequate recovery. The recovery time required is affected by the duration of the exercise, and the intensity. Most of us try to follow the adage of resting as much as we play. That cuts 2 ways--it allows more practice without doing damage, but it can also allow us to keep going long after we should have quit for the day. It may cause us to "exercise" in excess of our ability to recover.

There's one more (well, actually many more) lesson learned in the weight gym that carries over to brass playing, a concept called "work capacity" in strength training. That is basically an attempt to total up all that is done in a training session. You can do a lot more if you take frequent or longer rests, but eventually the total work takes it's toll. But work capacity can be trained. By carefully keeping track of the total amount done, and only increasing it slowly, one can gradually gain the ability to do a lot more without a proportional increase in rest. But it's easy to be erratic. It's easy to think that because I'm doing something that seems easy, I can do an unlimited amount of it.

Fatigue is not just one thing. It's about the energy systems in the muscle cells, it's about neurotransmitters (chemicals that transfer signals from one nerve to another or from a nerve to a muscle cell) in the brain and in the peripheral nervous system, it's about sleep deprivation, about anxiety and stress levels. The solution for you may be as simple as taking a light day occasionally, or even taking a day of complete rest occasionally. There is nothing physiologically that will be lost to a significant extent in one day. It may be a matter of balancing the kind of playing you are doing each day. It may be a matter of getting more sleep. It could be that you need to take what strength trainers call a "deload". That is when they take a period of time (typically a week or 10 days) of light exercise. They train as often as usual, but much less intensely. They may cut the volume of training (the total repetitions of the lifts) or they may cut the load (how heavy they lift) or a combination of both. They may substitute something new for their usual routine. If I were to prescribe a deload for a trumpet player, I'd say to practice music that you like, that is well within your abilities, and to play for less total time per day than you usually do, and do that for about a week before returning to your typical routine.
_________________
Andy

I'll admit it. It's a TR300, but it wants to be a Strad when it grows up.

[Insensato]

Some really interesting advice given so far. Thanks!
_________________
Every Villain Is Lemons

[jhatpro]

Once again I'm impressed by what a fabulous resource TH has become. It sure proves the adage that "everybody is smarter than anybody."
_________________
Jim Hatfield

"The notes are there - find them.� Mingus

2021 Martinus Geelan Custom
2005 Bach 180-72R
1965 Getzen Eterna Severinsen
1946 Conn Victor
1998 Scodwell flugel
1986 Bach 181 cornet
1954 Conn 80A cornet
2002 Getzen bugle