by Matthew Haislip
Assistant Professor of Horn, Mississippi State University
A well-balanced warm-up may be the single most important aspect of the horn playing experience. It is in this daily time spent on the various fundamental components of our instrument that efficiency and refinement are cultivated. It is where we train the subconscious connection of our inner musician to the instrument. However, hornists often play a “warm-up” that is far too strenuous. It becomes a “burn up” instead and can lead to burn out, physically, mentally, and emotionally. A “burn up” session will take one backwards in development, not forwards. I’ve been there many times. I was frustrated as a student that my dedicated work on a daily warm-up led to injury and reduced sensitivity and range. It’s not necessarily our fault, either. We look at the exercises in the well-known routines in publication and believe we need to play them from start to finish as written. Each overtone series. Each variation. Each tempo. Each note of the range. In doing so, we are missing the goal of warming up altogether. We also miss that many of these authors did not intend for every single item in their warm-up routines to be played every single day as written.
According to Oxford Languages, the definition of a warm-up is to “prepare for physical exertion or a performance by exercising or practicing gently beforehand.” Notice the word gently. Interesting, yes? How often do we finish our warm-up feeling adequately prepared for subsequent physical exertion or a performance? How often do we prepare for the playing day in a gentle manner? Do we end our warm-up session feeling empowered to face whatever playing demands come our way? Or do we feel as though the warm-up was all we could play for the day? Is our warm-up session an entire hour in length with little to no respite? To be sure, the warm-up needs built-in times of rest to restore our strength before moving on to the next area of work. Perhaps not every day should have the exact same warm-up. On heavy ensemble playing days, it needs to be short enough to conserve our endurance to last the day. This could be fifteen to twenty-five minutes. That is plenty of time to ready our playing gently and thoroughly. A day free of ensemble playing could see us lengthen the warm-up into a fundamental workshop of a couple of well-spaced hours, provided there is ample rest time built in. We should be able to adjust our warm-up time for whatever life throws at us…which might include a traffic jam allowing no warm-up at all before a gig!
What should a solid warm-up include? This question will vary with everyone’s experience, but there is a reason why sustained tones, chromatic slurs, overtone series slurs, scales, and other familiar exercises are so common. I feel that a good warm-up is centered around the idea of developing a characteristic sound in the middle register and then taking that sound across the range of the instrument with smoothness, flexibility, and varied articulation. I like to start with some mouthpiece buzzing in the car on the way to my first destination and then work in this order once I arrive: easy middle and low range chromatic slurs with limited long tones establishing a beautiful free sound before moving on to various overtone series slurs, scales, and flexibility exercises. It is important for me to spend a few brief moments on loud and soft extremes, too. I touch a couple of soft high entrances and play a short etude fragment or solo passage to finish. My warm-up can take as little as needed or can go forty-five minutes with breaks built in. I try to vary things a bit each day, too. To me, a warm-up is also about our mentality. At the end of our warm-up, we need to be able to confirm that we have adequately prepared our mind and body to make beautiful music on the horn. The mental act of connecting our subconscious mind to the instrument can help us be ready to make music before we even play one note—which is helpful for the rare occasions we are not afforded time to warm up!
One key way the warm-up could be streamlined from an exhausting session to an efficient one is to change from playing every single exercise in each key or overtone series on the horn to playing them in only one to four different keys. This keeps the lips fresh and actually allows for more exercises to be played in our warm-up time. Instead of getting through just one or two overtone series slur patterns, for instance, one could play a variety of several different slur exercises in different keys. This trains the coordination of air speed and sound production far better while keeping the mind engaged and free of boredom from monotonous repetition. It isn’t true that we won’t be ready to play unless we play each exercise in every single valve combination. Two or three series can be sufficient to solidify the approach to the pattern. We can explore new challenges in this time by improvising new exercises or by trying a wide variety of the already-published exercises in our fundamental repertoire. This applies to the way we practice each fundamental, especially scales. We can play some scales in different patterns, some quickly, some slowly, some starting from above, some from below, some in different tonalities, some softly, etc. all in the same amount of time that we could run through the exact same pattern, tempo, and dynamic across all twelve keys. By varying how we practice each activity on the horn, we become more skilled players, not only warming up, but also improving.
An effective warm up ultimately comes down to trust. Can we trust that we will be ready to play whatever we encounter after our warm-up? Yes. Can we trust that we will improve and not stagnate in our abilities if we warm up gently? Yes. This might mean saving some time later in the day for more strenuous musical calisthenics. It may mean adjusting the order, range, and time spent on our exercises. Each person is unique in their warm-up needs. Some virtuosos warm up in such impressive ways that would leave the rest of us injured just attempting to get through it! Yet they sound fresh and prepared for the incredible feats they perform on the horn that day. Still, other virtuosos warm up in a limited amount of time and within an intermediate-level range to feel prepared. Some don’t warm up at all! It is individual, but the principle remains: our warm-up can and, for most of us, should be gentle and empowering. Burn ups won’t prepare us, nor will they make us better.
May you find what warm up works best for you in your journey on our fabulous instrument!
