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| Aquilon wrote: |
| The past couple weeks it has seemed like I get tired right away when I play. I play for a couple minutes, and it starts to feel tired. Usually I still have a good range, but it feels uncomfortable to play. After a bit longer, range and tone start to suffer. Can anyone tell me how to fix this |
| Anthony wrote: |
| Without meaning to sound unhelpful, which is not my intention, I would recommend you just stop worrying about it! If you don't even think about endurance, then to a point it will stop being an issue after a while. It really does work! State of mind. |
| Elkonn wrote: |
| Hi Aquilon From what you say it sounds like your chops are tired and they need a rest. If I was you I would take 2 or 3 days off to let your muscles repair themselves. There is nothing to worry about, it happens to everyone at some stage in their playing, but if you continue to play on tired chops you are at risk of developing serious problems with your playing. Many people make the mistake of thinking that because their playing doesn't sound as good as it normally does (similiar to the problems you described) they need to practise more to make it better. When you have a damaged or tired muscle, that is the worst thing you could possibly do to it and continually battering away at sore chops is just asking for trouble. As I always say to students, forget the 'no pain, no gain' mentality. We are not bodybuilders aiming for chunky muscles, we are musicians training our body's and musical skills to produce the best quality product that we are capable off. We are never going to sound good playing with tired chops, so why try? Your chops are swollen or uncomfortable for a very good reason, I'm sure your not imagining it, so please take it easy and don't overdo it. Make sure you always have a good warm up, a sensible routine and know when you have had enough on a day to day basis without having tired chops the next day. Some players also have one day of a week to rest both their chops and their minds. It might be worth a try. |
On April 15, 2004, Joe Jackson wrote:
Aquilon,
If it turns out that rest is not the issue, then Anthony is right and it
is simply a matter of generating comfort and endurance playing the horn,
and while it is true that this takes times, I would like to offer some
information.
The human body is an amazing thing. When it encounters resistance, whether
it is physical resistance, mental, emotional, whatever, it adapts and the relevant
muscle group(s) vary their operation to eliminate the stress. Secondarily,
when this does not completely do the job of removing the stress, it
develops the physical or mental strength to withstand it.
Learning to play the trombone if the personification of this process. When
a person gets to a physical impediment, the body seeks to alter the way it
is performing in order to mitigate the stress. And aside from that it
develops strength.
Given this, the process of developing endurance and comfort playing the
horn is mostly the process of the mind and
body learning to play the horn in the most efficient manner, and secondarily,
the process of developing strength. Many great teachers have
expressed this relationship as "90% mental, 10% physical". So
while there is a process of physical muscle-building taking place during
practice and performance, the main thing that is happening is that your
body is physiometrically learning to play.
There is a good deal of things we can think about consciously that can
help this learning process along, of course this is what the OTJ Forum is
all about, especially the Practice Room.
So based on what I am hearing from you, your body has been adjusting to
this relatively new experience of paying trombone, and has made some
adjustments that have attempted to mitigate stress from playing. The only
problem is that this new action the muscles have developed are in direct
opposition to other muscles which are trying to do something else
(possibly or possibly not related to playing). So you have two muscles
pulling against each other - this is what we mean when we talk about
muscular tension.
Of course it is much too easy to say that the remedy to tension is
relaxation. Relaxation is one of the most difficult things to attain in
the human body. It is said that yogis spend their lives, working a dozen
or more hours per day, trying to attain relaxation. Developing relaxation
is much harder than developing strength, especially in the small muscles
(for example, lifting only your little toe is only a matter of relaxing
the muscles keeping it down, and yet many people work hours a day and it
can still take years to learn).
Have no fear, it should not take you 12 hours of practice per day for
thirty years to train your way out of this particular tension point. But
also be patient, and be generous to yourself and to your body during this
frustrating process. Do get rest. But I must respectfully differ a bit
from Elkonn and say that ultimately you have to play
through this impediment. Play on a cushion of strong air support from the
bottom of your gut, keep good strong fundamentals as you work, and I do
not think playing on your fatigued chops offers any danger.
I have found that lots of long tones help with opposing muscle tension
problems. Good luck.
©2003, Joe Jackson. All rights reserved.