Trumpet Beginner

Making the Most of your Practice Time

Music is fun! A lot of fun. Actually, the more you learn about music the more fun it will be. And there is so much to learn, you could spend 10 lifetimes without exhausting the possibilities.

But how do you get better? How can you have more fun?

Practice! Yep, and practicing is boring you say? I don’t think practice has to be boring. I think that people need to practice practicing. Sounds complicated? Let me explain.

If you practice and you don’t improve, I agree that you won’t be asking for more. But if you know how to practice and you see results, you will definitely be asking for more. It dawned on me that I wasn’t practicing right after 20 years of, yep, practicing.

One of the keys of doing it properly is choosing to practice things that you will actually apply during your weekend gig. I noticed how important this was to me each time I played a gig and noticed that there was something I wasn’t able to play properly. This would irritate me so much that I would rush home and sit there for hours until I mastered that particular technique or part.

Of course this is assuming that you know how to play already. But what about a beginner that just picked up a brand new violin and can’t find any fun in the unavoidable “screeching” that drives the cats away? Well, unfortunately, I don’t think there is a magic solution to this. I remember when I was starting on clarinet. The sounds I produced weren’t that much nicer than the screeching of a beginner’s violin, but what kept me going was the passion for music, the fun I had going to my classes and the eagerness to be able to get to the next étude. I wanted to move on, move away from the squeaks and get to play real masterpieces. I think this is what keeps musicians going. At least the ones who are meant to do so.

I believe that a passion or this secret inner drive that is hard to explain needs to be present to get you through the beginning phase and on to more interesting stages of your musical development.

Let me also point out that I’m a believer in hard work. I don’t think that everything can be achieved on fun alone. While I do believe that you have to love what you’re doing, unfortunately, you’ll also have to tough it out when things aren’t that fun. In the long run that will get you to new levels of musical achievements, which will ultimately provide new levels of fun, satisfaction, pride, and fulfillment.

This leads me to my second suggestion to knowing how to practice. Perseverance! Once you know what it is that you need to practice, put in some time and make sure you totally master it. It is important to master your part because once you try to apply what you’ve just practiced into the context of a piece of music or a song with your garage band, there are other things to consider. Suddenly you’ll have to listen to other people’s playing in order to blend in your part properly, you may have groupies screaming and shouting…

Of course every musician needs some guidance along the way. Usually this comes from a teacher. Having the right teacher is extremely important. This is not new of course and plenty has been written about this subject. A discussion on teachers is beyond the scope of this article, where I want to focus on practice. All I want to say that the right teacher provides guidance in a way that’s letting you develop your own style, your own approach and technique without letting you develop bad habits or plain mistakes.

A teacher can only do so much. If the student doesn’t display much interest the teacher’s hands are tied. So I encourage every musician to be pro-active. Even during your beginner stage I think it is a good idea to go out and look for books or cd’s that you’re interested in. Look for things that you would like to be able to play on your instrument and ask your teacher to help you get to that point. Again, here you’ll be practicing things that are of interest, which should help get rid of some of the boredom.

I’m a pretty competitive person. I would set challenges for myself during practice time and I would feverishly work on my technique to get to where I wanted to get. This way you can add some excitement to otherwise monotonous and repetitive exercises. Speaking about repetitive. I’ve heard people say that you should take breaks from practice in order not to strain your body too much. I have noticed that I work better if I practice for hours on end without breaks. This puts me in a "zone". After hours of practice, I get really comfortable with my instrument and things start falling into place. It goes without saying that this should only be done if there is absolutely no discomfort. The nature of different instruments will determine for how long you can practice. A trumpet player, for example, won’t be able to practice for 4 hours straight without putting his lips out of commission for two weeks.

By far the most important aspect of practice is musicality. You should never let the goal of practicing out of sight. The goal of practicing should be to become a better musician. I have personally wasted countless hours by practicing overly technical things that I haven’t used even once in my entire career. Knowing what not to practice will ultimately save you lots of time.

About the Author

Marco Kasel is a musician and business owner. You can find more of his articles at www.oceanbound.ca/yabb/YaBB.pl

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Ultimate Beginner Series - Trumpet: Volume 1 (DVD) $38.38 The ULTIMATE BEGINNER SERIES was truly devised with the novice player in mind. This lesson takes the novice trumpeter from opening the case through assembling the instrument, proper breathing, forming the embouchure, producing a sound, holding the instrument, correct posture, basic theory, learning notes, playing a song, and basic maintenance. Also included are demonstrations of good tone and proper technique. In short, this program contains everything needed to get one started on the trumpet.

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I Love the Trumpet - DVD $35.24 Mr. Vache is an active jazz trumpeter in New York City and a charter member of the faculty of the Jazz Studies program at the Juilliard School. In this DVD he presents lessons that apply to all students. Includes: four hours of video content and a 28-page booklet; lessons in breathing, fingering, embouchure and tonguing for the beginner to intermediate player, plus an advanced lesson; interviews with five featured students; footage of a recording session with Mr. Vache's band; history of the trumpet; a visit to the Musical Instrument Department of the Metropolitan Museum of Art; a tour of the Yamaha Brass Instruments facility; a "how-to" section of the proper care and cleaning of trumpets; sheet music that can be printed out on a PC including all the parts for the songs in the recording session; and much more. Includes lessons in English, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, French and German.

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