Now I am aware that in using the phrase “Money Muscle” that I might have inadvertently attracted a few new people looking at my blog for all the wrong reasons. Sorry, but you might want to look somewhere else.
I know for a fact that my friends Paul and Ash who run a professional horn section called The Enormous Horns have had similar issues with people who look at their website.
However if you are a brass player READ ON.
At college I over played to an extreme and payed the price for it. By overplaying it left my muscles weak and damaged. Thankfully I realized what I was doing before I was left with any permanent damage.
So here are a few pointers for those who want to be able to play in 5 years time and advance as a brass player:
1) If it hurts to play STOP, you’ve already gone way past the point that you should have called it a day.
2) If it’s a rehearsal, that’s exactly what it is. Give them the best that you can but don’t give it more than you have. Stopping BEFORE the point of damage and exhaustion will build up your stamina.
You won’t see sportsman run themselves into the ground in training!! So why should you?!
3) If you are rehearsing before a gig, leave more than enough in the tank. Better chill in the rehearsal and be killer on the gig than the other way around.
Playing High
1) If someone’s screaming at you “loader, higher, louder, higher!”- Don’t rise to it if you don’t feel you can. It’s easy for them to do that but you only have one set of chops. It takes more courage to put your instrument down and not play than to attempt to carry on and wish you hadn’t.
2) There are no short cuts. We all know that playing high is the action the tires you out the fastest. Pressure (or “screwing on”) is not the solution when you’re feeling tired!! Simply take a break or take it down until you recover or even until the end of the rehearsal/ gig. There are times when it just doesn’t matter about putting a few phrases up, it’s just decoration.
3) If you are in a situation where you CANNOT stop or take it down then you are not ready to be in that position. If you look at Allen Vizzuti, Derick Watkins, Wynton and any other top player, do they look phased or that they’re piling on pressure and stress to reach notes? Does it sound like it?
Don’t be disheartened! If you’re serious about what you do you’ll get the guidance you need, do the research and the practice to strengthen your technique so you can play the way you want. But pressure and non stop playing with poor technique will destroy your chops forever. I’ve seen it happen.
It’s important that you respect your body enough to know it’s limits. If you’re not happy about those limits then do as I’ve suggested and increase them through guidance, knowledge and practicing the right things.
It appears as though I’m advocating musicians to randomly stop playing in gigs and rehearsals. This is not the case. Fatigue will set in towards the end of a session (this is where my advice should be used) and if it sets in earlier then you need to look at yourself and find out why this is.
My advice is to be selfish. A band can live without a top F at the end of Foggy Day or double G’s in last bars of Feeling Good. The big picture is that it doesn’t matter. What does is you and your chops!!
The reason I’ve written this is because I’ve made a lot of these mistakes. So that you don’t have to!!!
I hope you find it useful.
