Warm Up Routine

[Liad Bar-EL]

Could someone please inform me on what was the Chicago School's (don't need to everyone here do I?) warm up routine and was it applied to all of his students?

Also, is there anything published in this regard that one can order or share?

Thanks,

Liad

[_Don Herman]

Hi Liad,

Wonderful to see you contributing to TH as well as TPIN!

As for the Chicago school, first I must note that the “school” comprises many people, so there isn’t one routine (“his”) to reference. While Arnold Jacobs is most cited, there are many players and teachers of “the school” with warm-ups as varied and unique as the players themselves. The common thread of the school is a playing concept based upon mental sound rather than focusing upon the mechanics of playing, especially in performance. Analyze to your heart’s content in the practice room, but on the stage it’s all about making the sound in your head go out to the audience. In the Chicago School, a teacher’s place is to help the student create and follow a sound model, whether a single player s/he wishes to emulate, or an amalgamation combined into a unique sound. The teacher (ideally) knows and understands the physical mechanics, from the role of air and the diaphragm to what the lips do, but guides the student by creating sounds to emulate and helping develop the mental acuity and focus needed to play. The precepts were stated by Arnold Jacobs as “song and wind” – music in your mind created by air in motion.

For me, a warmup’s purpose is to prepare me – mentally and physically – to play what I need to play today. So, my warmup varies a bit, depending on the demands of the day. I always start with mouthpiece buzzing (Jacob’s did not encourage free buzzing, though mouthpiece buzzing was often used). This helps get my sound going, and helps get my mind engaged. With my teacher, I try to match what he plays; alone, I’ll try to do a similar routine. We pick off a series of notes and (try to, in my case) play them with full sound and proper pitch. It’s a mental exercise in that I have to hear and follow, or identify from notes on the page or in my mind, the pitch I want to play. The physical part is getting the air moving and chops limber enough to produce good sound, even if it is just the mouthpiece. Some time on the horn – not too much time! – follows, typically with slurred and tongued arpeggios over the range needed, some tonguing work just to ensure I’m blowing through (and not stopping the air when I tongue) the phrase, maybe some long tones (actually don’t do these often) or slow note groups to make sure I have full sound all the way to the end (another issue for me is chopping a whole note off before four full counts, like maybe 3 ½ or 3 ¾ beats), plus a few other short exercises targeting the music I want to play. For instance, I may do a few rhythmic figures or fingering challenge routines if that’s needed; soft flow studies or just made-up melodic phrases if ballads or such are in order. I may play a few snippets of the music I need to work on, but really by this time (after 5-10 minutes) I’m practicing, not warming up. While I do many of these elements each day, my warmup targets what I feel I need to work on to get me physically fit and mentally focused to play what’s before me today, so it’s not a set routine.

As for books, I’m not aware of a Chicago-specific warmup. Closest thing might be Vincent Cichowicz’s Trumpet Flow Studies though even that’s not a warmup per se. My favorite Chicago texts are both Jacobs-centric:

Arnold Jacobs: The Legacy of a Master, collected by M. Dee Stewart, The Instrumentalist Publishing Company, 1987.

Arnold Jacobs: Song and Wind, Brian Frederiksen, Wind Song Press Limited, 1996.

Hope this helps! - Don
_________________
Don Herman/Monument, CO
"After silence, that which best expresses the inexpressible, is music." - Aldous Huxley