Apartment plus covid means practice stress. Where do you practice?

[whoispufferfish]

Hello!

I'm a brand new trombone player, not a new musician.

In March, I picked up a trombone with intent to start lessons in April. Thanks to the coronavirus, that never happened. All my previously available practice room options are still closed to me, but I don't want to wait another year for them to be open again! I want to start learning now!

I'm trying to figure out where I can practice. My walk in closet is poorly designed for regular storage use, so I don't know how I'd stuff the bell into the clothes without bashing the slide on the wall. (12 hrs later update: I've checked my closet and it's actually too small to fully extend the horn anyway. Lame.) My other option is to try to construct some kind of pillow cave like in that one old video. There's always my car (a sedan), but I worry I'd blow my ears out even with earplugs.

I suppose I could try going outside, but then my options are the woods behind my apartment (full of ticks,mostly a giant hill, backs up to a housing development), or outside the music building on the college campus. But with how things are right now I don't know how they would take a random alum playing trombone on the lawn...

I'm really loathe to play at home because of the anxiety of disturbing my neighbors. I had a long, bad time of someone being home and judging my practicing as a percussionist, which led to me basically feeling like every practice had to be perfect already. I want to work through that, but I also recognize that I'm still a new brass player so I'm going to sound subpar for quite some time. I don't want to subject my neighbors to that.

Fellow apartment dwellers, or others who also have practice anxiety, where do you practice?

I guess the best and most convenient for me solution would be to try to soundproof my closet as best I can, then leave a note for my downstairs neighbors...(edit: nope)

[Doubler]

Having clothes in the closet to help absorb sound is a good thing. An extra layer of carpet and padding may help a little. Working out a schedule that avoids your neighbors being home could work also.

Brass instruments project, so anyone nearby will probably hear something. If you play everything that you're good at playing, people will hear music, but you'll never improve without working on the stuff that sounds like a wounded elephant. Non-musicians seem to not appreciate your diligence when you do this. The best thing I did was to sacrifice and get to where I could take the (at the time) scary plunge and buy my own house (NOT a townhouse!). If you can manage it, even as a long-term goal, you'll never regret leaving apartment living behind.

[harrisonreed]

Yeah, unfortunately practicing in a closet with clothes everywhere won't make you any better at playing outside of that closet. Brass instruments make the room a part of the sound, so if you play only in bad spaces you'll sound bad everywhere else. I think if you are crazy, you could build a floated room inside your existing room with 6-12 inches of space between its walls and the walls of the room you built it in. No sound should get out.

I remember teachers telling me at school that playing in horrible sounding, tiny practice rooms would make me sound great everywhere else, especially my articulations. The more I played in those crappy rooms, the smaller and crappier my sound got.

[euphobone]

First of all: If you sound great while practicing, then you're doing it wrong. Just kidding...but seriously, get a practice mute. The sshhmute is great. Around $70. Very even response, not as quiet as the Yamaha Silent Brass, but very good. There are also many other mutes out there (Best Brass, Dillon Music, Denis Wick), but for me the sshhmute is the right one. There are also smaller versions of most of these mutes that don't go past the bell flare, and can be stored in-bell in the case.

There's a video of Carol Jarvis playing the sshhmute on youtube. And look up The Trombone Shop, he reviews many practice mutes side-by-side. You may get many detractors who claim a practice mute is the worst thing ever. I don't agree, but you have to choose for yourself.

Just remember three things:
1.They will all play sharp and you will have to pull your main slides out maybe twice as much.
2. No practice mute will ever play like an open horn
3. You may want to over-blow because you can't hear yourself, so just take it easy when working with one.

With these things in mind you won't go in having unreasonable expectations. You may decide to settle with a better blowing mute that has some weird tuning tendencies, or with a better-in-tune mute that is just not as free blowing, or WHATEVER. You might have to ultimately compromise something. Try things out on your own and find what works.

Good Luck!

[Burgerbob]

1. Parking garages

2. I practiced in an apartment in a busy block for years. I did so by writing up a letter explaining why I had to practice, and that I wouldn't do so from 7pm until 10am on any given day. Once I did that I never had an issue. Before that? Cops called on me 3 times.

3. Practice mute for worst case scenario. Use sparingly.

4. Practice very, very quietly. This is a more advanced skill.

[MrHCinDE]

Strange places I‘ve practiced over the years, in case any of these would give you an idea that might work for you:

1. Basement of my apartment building next to the heating system etc.
2. Back of a transit (box) van whilst working away on-site, not ideal but noticeably better than in a car
3. Cave in the woods
4. Abandoned industrial building

[Vegasbound]

Welcome to the fellowship of the slide, as someone once named it, have you had any lessons online? If not then you should start it will make sure whatever you are doing , you are doing in the correct and most efficient way

As a beginner, it isn't as if you will be doing 4 hours practice, probably no more than 30 mins at most???

I practice at home, between office hours, the street as we discovered during lockdown has a few pro and amateur musicians including singers when in the UK every Thursday throughout the country at 8pm musicians started performing on their doorsteps as a signal of support for health workers

[DougHulme]

What about getting a softone Neoprene mute. Muffles the sound for the neighbours, filters the air coming out (covid friendly) less resistance than a straight practice mute, closer to natural playing and its a cheap and easy alternative to other venues and then (like Burgerbob said) take the mute off and practice very quietly. Alternatively wear the mute like a hat, make sure it covers your ears and you will be convinced the neighbours have nothing to worry about and besides that anything you do must be considered quieter than when you played percuussion (someone told me to say that - it wasnt me honest) so why would the neighbours complain... Doug

[Vegasbound]

Yamaha silent brass was developed for the small apartments and high density population in Japan....not cheap but once your used to playing with headphones they work very well, and in fact you often find because of the headphones you are also playing at a lower volume than you think, better for the chops

[whoispufferfish]

1: I've always been told, even as a non wind player, that first learning to play with a mute in is a terrible idea because it throws off your sense of tone and pressure. So far I've played my horn exactly once, when I first got it, off in the woods so I could do the best my weak little lungs could do with noise.

2: I just tested my closet and it's not long enough in any direction to fully extend the horn. So I'm really out of home ideas. My apartment building doesn't have a basement, and our parking lot is directly outside. Our doors/windows are very, very bad at noise insulation so I often get woken up by cars driving by.

3: I have not done online lessons yet because I want to find a way to play the thing somewhere first.

4: I was primarily a mallet percussionist, so I used a cheap glockenspiel at home and borrowed the school's vibraphone over the summer for pre marching band practice. I never did get the hang of drum set so i was never as loud as your friend thinks @doug. Lol

[whoispufferfish]

Having clothes in the closet to help absorb sound is a good thing. An extra layer of carpet and padding may help a little. Working out a schedule that avoids your neighbors being home could work also.

Brass instruments project, so anyone nearby will probably hear something. If you play everything that you're good at playing, people will hear music, but you'll never improve without working on the stuff that sounds like a wounded elephant. Non-musicians seem to not appreciate your diligence when you do this. The best thing I did was to sacrifice and get to where I could take the (at the time) scary plunge and buy my own house (NOT a townhouse!). If you can manage it, even as a long-term goal, you'll never regret leaving apartment living behind.

Oh believe me if I could afford a house right now I'd already have one. But I'm paying more in rent than the mortgages around here go for monthly so I haven't been able to save up for a down payment.

[baileyman]

My own practice mute suffers none of the defects euphobone lists. If you are near Boston, I'll make you one. And by the way, the great advantage to one of these is that you can hear very clearly the noise in you mouth and head. It's not covered up by reverb off the walls.

[whoispufferfish]

I've decided to buy a Ssshh mute. We'll see how that goes. Most of what I need to work on initially is memorizing the slide positions, relearning bass clef, and breath support. So I think this is a good enough solution. Woo.

[AdamTbn]

Maybe spring for something like this? Then add some thick carpet underneath.

https://www.mercari.com/us/item/m577192 ... ch_results

[afugate]

There are so many things to learn when first starting the trombone. Not all of them require the horn.

Forming an embouchure correctly is a big one. Perhaps a starter lesson with someone like Doug would be a good investment at this point. I know in my case he suggested a few exercises that made a significant improvement. These exercises were done without the horn or mouthpiece.

-- Andy in OKC

[euphobone]

This intrigues me. Do you have pictures you can share or videos of one in use?

My own practice mute suffers none of the defects euphobone lists. If you are near Boston, I'll make you one. And by the way, the great advantage to one of these is that you can hear very clearly the noise in you mouth and head. It's not covered up by reverb off the walls.

[Beanboy128]

Kind of weird, but im in highschool and when me and they boys have a jam session in someones basement, me and the tuba hold a pillow to our bells because we are the loudest people by far. It may be odd but if you can figure out a way to get it to stay it works.

[lewbone92]

As a fellow newcomer to trombone, I’m in the same situation. Not sure if it’s just me, but I’ve found my bathroom to be an ideal place in my studio apartment, the acoustics in it are great. I also have liked getting outdoors — such as a park — to reduce my playing anxiety.

Going to buy myself a mute for future apartment playing (my neighbors aren’t annoyed, I just want to be precautious)!

[StephenK]

I think a practice mute used quietly is better than nothing, though not at all ideal.
One tip I heard from Ian Bousfield about practising in hotel rooms was to have the TV on with sound moderately up at the same time. Apparently people are more tolerant of TV sound than trombone scales.

[Kdanielsen]

I've decided to buy a Ssshh mute. We'll see how that goes. Most of what I need to work on initially is memorizing the slide positions, relearning bass clef, and breath support. So I think this is a good enough solution. Woo.

I recently bought one too. Its really great. Ive owned a bunch of practice mutes and this is the best.