Lip Partial execercise

[umytbnxt]

What are the benefits to playing lip partial exercises that are slurred? I've been working on them out of a brass packet that I recieved from Spirit of JSU...formally known as Spirit of Atlanta.

Drew

[Joe Good]

Have you ever trained with weights before? You know how it feels when you take off ankle weights or heavy boots? It's sort of like that. Lip slurs are difficult, and require good technique. The benefit is that your ability to target notes can improve exponentially through the practice of lip slurs/trills. That, and a lot of music has written slurs and that's where people crash and burn pretty often

Have fun!
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[umytbnxt]

Thanks, makes sense. What are also the benefits of being able to play the partials with alternate fingering such as high B flat open and A with the 2nd valve compressed etc......?

Drew

[Joe Good]

Ahh, the dreaded "seventh" partial. Well, mostly flexibility, and people occasionally use those for lip trills, etc.

Personally, I break slurs into several categories, with the following factors:

Range (low, med, high)
Speed (slow, med, fast)
Skipping partials (yes, no)

I'm of the view that all are important, and none should be neglected. So, in other words, High, fast slurs where you don't skip partials are just as important as low/med, slow where you do skip partials (deliberately). If you can do all of these things, it sure seems to help with lyrical playing, endurance, etc.

When I practice, I usually start out slurring Mid-staff C, Midstaff G, low C, pedal C, double pedal C slowly. Put down 2nd valve and repeat, etc all the way down to F#. Then I do this thing that some crazy guy taught me, where I slur really fast from low C, staff G, Staff C and back and forth, to make sure everything is loose and supple. Down a halfstep, repeat, etc. It is impossible to do this if you have excess tension going on, so it's a good check for me. Then, if I'm feeling bold, I put down 1,2,3 starting on top-line F#, and quickly slur up the major scale to the C# (F#, G#, A#, B, C#, B, A#, G#, F#) and back down, etc. Slowly working my way up, to where I'm slurring from High C to High G through the scale. Sometimes this makes me feel so relaxed that I just pop up to notes above the High G. Bear in mind, that these are only meant as an example of what I do, and you may want to consult a physician before attempting them on your own
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Live Recording:
Quad Core 2.4Ghz, 4 GB RAM, RAID 0 pair of WD Raptor 10,000 RPM Hard Drives, windows XP pro
Matched pair AKG C414XLS, various condenser and dynamic microphones. Octane Pre’s. Sonar 8, Sound Forge 9, Nuendo 3, Waves Mercury Bundle.

[iskander]

[Then, if I'm feeling bold, I put down 1,2,3 starting on top-line F#, and quickly slur up the major scale to the C# (F#, G#, A#, B, C#, B, A#, G#, F#) and back down, etc.]

Joe, I wanted to clarify, you are playing F# scale with 1-2-3 all the way through? Then it would be a lip bending exercise, right?
Thanks,

Iskander[/quote]

[Norm]

What are lip partial exercises? Thanks.

Norm

[tomba51]

[John Mohan]

These are usually called Lip Flexibility or just Flexibility exercises.

An even better term for them is Tongue-Level exercises, since it is the tongue level that does the most to change notes when slurring (or when tonguing).

Practicing flexibility exercises is important because it's the best way to gain the feel or knack of playing in various registers and changing between registers, and also as someone else posted, you've got to be able to slur from one partial to another cleanly if you're going to make music on a brass instrument.

Sincerely,

John Mohan
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Ex LA Studio Musician
16 Year Claude Gordon Student

[iskander]