Practice every day or every second day?

[Capt. Z]

Hi there;

I may be new the the forum but been playing cornet for over 25 years.

A few years back, while I still did some physical exercise, I did read some books on body building. There it states, that a muscle needs at least 48 hours of rest, before it gets trained again. Otherwise the hard work is less effective and can slow down or even harm the growth of the muscle.

Well, since we use our lip muscles while playing our horn, the question arrieses:

Should we also give our lips and lip muscle a 48 hour rest, before we practice again?

Thanks

[jhatpro]

I've had best results playing every day, but alternating heavy and light days. I also work out a lot and find this works best in the gym as well.

I've also found that it's best to try to work from three to six 20-minute playing sessions into any 18 hour period, rather than pound away for an hour in the morning and, maybe, an hour at night. And even within the shorter sessions, frequent 30-second rests increase endurance.

Best,

Jim
_________________
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

[musicmonkey]

Welcome to the forums!

In short, to answer your question: No!

When you lift weights, you break down the muscle and then it needs time to rebuild. However, I haven't heard of waiting 48 hours between each body-building session. Generally, I think the rule is to take one or two days off per week, and on the other days, exercise different muscles (leg day, arm day, back day, etc.)

However, trumpet is somewhat different. The lips are a very small muscle compared to, say, the biceps. While I don't know if this effects recovery time, I would say you are safe to play every day (maybe with one day off every week). A lot of the exercises we do on trumpet don't actually break down the lip muscle (I don't think) kind of like lifting an apple doesn't break down arm muscles.

However, if you do calisthetic (sp?) exercises (a la Caruso), it is advised that you give the lips sufficient time to rebuild. Not necessarily by taking a day off, but by taking plenty of time between exercises.

I think most people on here will advise resting as much as you play (or almost as much) when you practice. But I doubt they will advise taking every other day off. As long as you don't kill your lips every day (the exception might be if you have a particularly challenging gig) you should be good to practice again the next day.

Hopefully this isn't too confusing. And remember, it's just my 2cents....

mm