| O.J.'s Trumpet Page | Trumpet Practice |
| The single most influential element in your ultimate success or failure as a brass player is the quality of the time spent in the practice room. It is more important than talent, and it is more important than who you study with. You should constantly re-assess your practice habits and make sure that you are learning and growing with each session. |
This is a quote from Brass Tactics Companion by Chase Sanborn taken from the first chapter, The Practice Routine (page 13 - 23). The practice routine is divided into 4 groups:
Everybody has different amounts of time to devote to practicing, from a half-hour a day to three or more hours a day. (Most players never feel they have enough.) I recommend a minimum of one hour every day. It is impossible, however, to practice all the techniques I have outlined in this book in one hour, let alone get to practicing music, which is the whole point of playing an instrument. Rather than leave some things out, I have devised a system that lets you cycle through various parts of the routine, not necessarily doing everything every day, but rotating them so as to get to everything at least once every week, usually more than once. It also allows you to devote more time to the things you are interested in working on the most, while not ignoring any of the basics of sound production. The key to this system is to divide the assignment into groups.
GROUPS
... The student will do at least two or
more groups a day, depending on how much time they have. They will then
rotate through the groups in subsequent practice sessions. This has the
double advantage of allowing more items in the routine than they may have
time for on a daily basis, and creating diversity, as they are not practicing
the same thing every day.
Here is a list of the different exercises and material in the 4 groups (from page 14 in Brass Tactics Companion):
GROUP 1: WARM UP