One and Done...

[JTeagarden]

This is kind of an embarassing confession, but despite playing off and on for many, many years, with varying degrees of effort and success, I have never practiced more than once per day....

In college, this was simply not possible as a non-music major, and I played in lots of ensembles, so lots and lots of facetime with the horn.

I tend to be pretty spent after about 45 minutes of practicing, but I can't help but think this is because of deeply rooted practicing habits, and an odd equating of chop fatigue with a sign of a successful "workout."

Would be interested in hearing your development in the manner and length of your practice sessions, and how that translated into success on the horn.

[harrisonreed]

At my best I was doing 4-5 20 minute sessions throughout the day, with two one hour rehearsals a day.

[tromboneVan]

It really depends on the player, and their goals. Obviously quantity is not paramount, and does not take precedence over quality. But there are limitations to what you can expect to accomplish in practicing 1 hour a day... that's really more a matter of what your ambitions are, and how much you want to improve. I was taught that 1 hour is for basic maintenance, and 2-4 hours a day is *generally* an approximate amount an advancing player needs for maintaining & improving. I can see how one could get by with an hour of practice, being very focused and executing it as efficiently and effectively as possible... but could you improve more with more practice time? That is really hard for me to say since everyone is wired differently... Probably. I'd still go for one hour of super focused practice over 4 hours of distracted and unfocused practice.

[JTeagarden]

While I would love to be much better, and at one time in fact was, I think 1 hour of very focused practicing is about all I can muster and/or which my wife would be willing to tolerate, but maybe breaking it into 2 or three shorter and also focused sessions is a better approach?

[tbdana]

I was an extreme practicer for a while, back when the earth's crust was still cooling. I went through a period of time (1975-1978) where I practiced 6-8 hours per day, most days. I treated it like a full-time job. It was a brutal commitment. But my ability skyrocketed during that time.

And it's no surprise why: there is no substitute for flight time.

If you practice 1 hour/day, 5 days/week you practice 260 hours per year.

If you practice 6 hours/day, 6 days a week, you put in 1,872 hours of practice in one year.

Over three years' time, the latter person will practice almost 5,000 hours MORE than the former person. Assuming any kind of reasonable practice regimen, anyone who does the latter is going to improve more than anyone doing the former, even if the former has better practice habits.

I think I averaged about 6 hrs/day for three years. It's not surprising that my playing took a gigantic leap during that period.

Of course, that's an undertaking that casual players simply cannot do. You have to be incredibly dedicated and disciplined (and young! LOL!), and give up most everything else in life during that period. I managed it in my 20s. But now, spending April of this year putting in 4 hours a day practically killed me. But when you put in big amounts of time, whatever the details are, the benefits stay with you for life.

[JTeagarden]

Thanks, I have NEVER met a really top-notch brass player who didn't have a period in their life when they practiced 4-6 hours a day, and sometimes a lot more than this, this seems to simply be the "table stakes" for playing at the highest level, I also know lots of stories of players who were rather average, until the decided to go "all in," and only then did they become really top-level performers.

There seems to be no way around it!

[tbdana]

It's a sickness...

[VJOFan]

Long hours was how i answered the question of if I could get to where I wanted to be as a player. I was making a living from my horn but wanted to be in the top echelon of orchestras. After two years of at least five hours a day and taking regular lessons again it was clear I wasn't going to get 'there' on any timeline that was reasonable for me.

People still occasionally still ask if I miss playing. 1, I still play. 2, no, I don't miss doing it that way because I did all I could and am at peace with where I am.

[JTeagarden]

At this point, I'd be happy enough with a high level of consistency in my chops, so being able to do what I can normally do, all the time, and not have the feeling that it's kind of a crapshoot when I put the horn to my face...

I would love to up the ante and put even a couple hours into practicing over an extended period, to see if the improvements are there to be had.

Allen Barnhill offered me a full ride in the early 1980s to study with him, but the first thing he told me was "for some period of time, you can't do anything other than practice your horn."

I don't know that I "coulda been a contender," and have had a happy and fulfilling life, but a part of me wishes I had tried.

May my words resonate with young trombone players!

[JTeagarden]

It's funny what you forget, and then you suddenly remember discovering something before...

Most recent recollection: Having a set rhythm and timing for breathing, setting your embouchure, and starting a note goes a long way towards consistent entrances without chipping notes!

[PJones]

Personally, I try to have at least 4 practice sessions a day and the length of them is dependent on what I’m working on. With daily routine stuff I can do about an hour straight but with solos and general rep work I can do about 30 minutes. Ideally I get about 4 hours (more on the weekends) of practice time a day and as a current college student I can say there’s always time if you go looking for it. Sometimes saying ‘well I only have 20 minutes until next thing might as well practice’ is such a great shift in mentality when looking for that time. And I really like your analogy of ‘workout’ but as it comes to weight training you have to do multiple sets of the same exercise to capitalize on muscle growth. This same very concept can apply to playing trombone or any instrument. While yes playing hard for 45 minutes straight sounds exhausting, if these sessions were shortened and spread out you would get more overall volume and this building more muscle/more productive practice time.