Average day vs great day

[BrassSection]

Is it just me, or do others have an “average” playing day most of the time? Everything sounds good, hitting all the notes, etc, but then some days everything seems 3 notches higher in your playing ability. Today started on trumpet, as is usual for energetic first song. Notes coming extra easy. Euph on second song, basically to cover a cello part. Man, horn sounded good today. Trombone third song low E to G above the staff playing, to borrow a quote, it sounded almost professional. Last part of last song needed a trumpet for some energetic high notes on the final chorus. Swapped trombone for trumpet real quick, thought my pro trumpet buddy was playing. Only difference today…near end of coffee can this morning, dumped extra in so coffee was stronger than my usually strong coffee. Other difference outside temp back above below 0 or single digit numbers this morning. No extra practice, same farm chore morning routine, didn’t bath any horns this week, etc. Thoughts?

[Posaunus]

Count your blessings and continue on!

[stewbones43]

Yeah, I know what you mean.

For me, an average day is when I make a few little mistakes. A bad day is when I make more or bigger mistakes. A good day is the same as an average day but nobody else notices the mistakes.

Cheers

Stewbones43

[Wayne]

Bodies and brains vary day to day (minute to minute). If putting in well planned, consistent work were all it took to ensure performance, there wouldn’t be much fun watching elite athletics performances. All the runners in a 100 m would run the same time they ran in the semi finals and initial heats because that would just be their consistent time for example.

It’s a given that in any physical or mental activity performance will not be the same each time. Regular practice is probably more about raising the floor of ability, so even bad days are pretty good. Breaking through the normal ceiling might just be a a signal that the floor can get even higher.

There are so many variables to how all the connected mind-body parts work that no matter how careful a player is, there is no way to be 100 percent sure what accounted for a single blip in performance ability. Those are going to happen. It’s the long term trends that show what are the most effective habits.

[tbdana]

I don't think I've ever had a "great day" in my entire life.

[WilliamLang]

I feel like I have a "great day" where things feel easy from the moment I pick up the horn about once or twice a year. The rest of the time is trying to be the highest percentage of that feeling as I can manage.

[flyingcow]

I had one of those days yesterday. I think it was the practice before rehearsal. Some Phil Teele exercises gave me kind of a breakthrough in the lower register, and that translated to a HUGE bump in core in my sound though all registers. At rehearsal, the great day culminated in the most perfect muted middle D I have ever played (That one single muted note in Death of Tybalt). The articulation was dead on.. quick clear and powerful.

The whole orchestra heard just how good that middle D was...

...because it was a bar early.

On second thought, I think I'm with Dana on this one.

I don't think I've ever had a "great day" in my entire life.

[BrassSection]

I don't think I've ever had a "great day" in my entire life.

Any day you haven’t assumed room temperature, you’re vertical, and you can play your horns is a great day!

[BrianJohnston]

Honestly, i've learned to never hope for a good day or get upset at a bad day. I just stay neutral and try to improve everyday.

[LeTromboniste]

Is it just me, or do others have an “average” playing day most of the time?

That kind of make me laugh. By definition, most days will be close to the "average" day – if you consistently had better days, then that would be your average (unless your bad days are so bad that they drag the "average" down) wouldn't it?


Joking aside, yes. Good days are not every day. I feel like I have a bit more good days than bad ones, which is nice. But then it gets all the more frustrating when a performance lands on a bad day.

[timothy42b]

A former forum member used to say:

You need to be line level competent on your worst day.

[JTeagarden]

Every so often I have great days where absolutely everything aligns, and within reason, I can play absolutely anything, tonguing cleanly in the pedal range, every note comes out with a consistent attack as I intended, great sound from PP to FF...

I obviously try to "reverse engineer" these days in my head, and while I tend to attribute it to a balanced and rested embouchure, I suspect this perception is due to what I choose to focus on, and that the "stars aligning" on such days is a combination of everything, and I have never been able to bottle those magical days in any practical way.

Meanwhile, my average days seem to get incrementally better, and seems like the better headline.

I have also noticed that great days and lousy days seem to bear absolutely no relationship to how I feel before I start playing, and my perception as to how well I will play that day: zero correlation at all.

[LeTromboniste]

I have also noticed that great days and lousy days seem to bear absolutely no relationship to how I feel before I start playing, and my perception as to how well I will play that day: zero correlation at all.

For me there are usually signs that indicate it's likely to be an especially good or bad days, but they do sometimes lie.

I also constantly marvel at the power a cup of coffee has! I once had an absolutely disastrous dress rehearsal 90 minutes before a very exposed and fairly high-profile chamber music concert, where my lips felt like two slabs of concrete. Completely dead, awful response and no control, with obvious swelling from several long and intense days of rehearsing and performing two very demanding programmes, and also lots of mental fatigue. I had an espresso and a quick shower in the green room 20 minutes before the concert, then walked on stage and played one of my best concerts ever, with my lips suddenly feeling extremely good.

[Posaunus]

I had an espresso and a quick shower in the green room 20 minutes before the concert, then walked on stage and played one of my best concerts ever, with my lips suddenly feeling extremely good.

Attitude (even if fueled by an espresso) is everything!

[taylorjones]

"Some days you're the windshield, some days you're the bug."

[BrassSection]

I had one of those days yesterday. I think it was the practice before rehearsal. Some Phil Teele exercises gave me kind of a breakthrough in the lower register, and that translated to a HUGE bump in core in my sound though all registers. At rehearsal, the great day culminated in the most perfect muted middle D I have ever played (That one single muted note in Death of Tybalt). The articulation was dead on.. quick clear and powerful.

The whole orchestra heard just how good that middle D was...

...because it was a bar early.

I play off a chord sheet, so I really don’t have notes, just a starting point. Always figured without music, there’s no such thing as a wrong note…there is however the wrong time to play some notes…

[Fidbone]

A great day is when I don’t have to play the freaking thing

[Posaunus]

A great day is when I don’t have to play the freaking thing

To this old guy, a great day is when I realize that I can still play the freakin' thing without totally embarrassing myself!

[slidesix]

I think Maximilien is spot on about averages or central tendency. I had to chuckle at that one, too. Of course most days have a central tendency (mean, medium, mode).

I'm a little different as a recovering hobby player or amateur player. Most of my average days are quite worse than OP BrassSection describes. His average days are more like my best days, ha!

My days tend to be a bit more variable. It depends on what I am focusing on. All my days are practice days, so I'm not talking about playing in groups: I don't do that yet. I just look for forward process week to week or month to month. And I try to get better at least ONE thing every practice session.

With that said, I did get to rehearse with a group 2 week ago for a couple hours. I was happy to report that I didn't embarrass myself nor give a bad impression of me or my abilities. So there was that!

[slidesix]

I wouldn't say I was on-fire. Or hitting everything 100%. I made 2 mistakes on tenor clef. (played G as Eb both times I think). Also read a Db as D once. Except for the Db miss, my intonation was pretty good everywhere else. I found it pretty cool that many of the patterns of note runs in the music seems to match much my little practice pieces from my method books. Yay, Western Music and Music Theory!

Not bad for my first ensemble playing this decade/century/millennium! So I'm not yet used to playing with others. Mostly I just practice myself at my home each night. I still find playing alone to be satisfying though. Plus, how else I am going to get better at any sort of pace to those improvements, if I don't practice? At least I enjoy it. Thanks for the space.

[BrassSection]

Not bad for my first ensemble playing this decade/century/millennium! So I'm not yet used to playing with others. Mostly I just practice myself at my home each night. I still find playing alone to be satisfying though. Plus, how else I am going to get better at any sort of pace to those improvements, if I don't practice? At least I enjoy it. Thanks for the space.

Congrats on entering back in! Dec 2024 I played in my first concert in 53 years, my senior year in high school. I play mostly on a weekly basis one or more of the following, trumpet, trombone, euphonium, and French horn…improvising off a guitar chord sheet in a church group. Played euph in a community Christmas band with actual music. Got my mistakes figured out in practice, concert went well. Few months ago almost made it through a trumpet duet with a pro…treble clef rare for me to use, hit one C instead of a C#. That’s the stuff that keeps me humble, and drives me to practice trumpet music more.

Keep playing, helps keep you young!