WARMUP

Every practice session should begin with a good warm-up to prepare your muscles and your ears for the music that you are about to play.  A good warm-up should include: Long tones, flexibility exercises, scales, and some music reading. For drummers it should include rudiments such as the long roll, paradiddle, flam, etc. In all warmups, make sure that you are listening and watching that your form and posture and sound quality are correct.

LONG TONES

Hold various notes for at least 8 slow counts. Start in your low range, and then gradually try higher notes. Make sure that all muscles are as relaxed as possible with the exception of your diaphram which pushes your air. Take the deepest breath possible. Exhale completely while you hold your long tone - and stay relaxed. Once you can do this well, then try to add a crescendo and decrescendo during the 16 beats. Try to be very gradual about your getting louder and softer (no sudden bursts of air and sound). Then . . . take a well deserved break. (Breaks are very important, especially for brass players. You are building muscles and they need rest.)

FLEXIBILITY

Brass players should do lip slurs, such has the three-note, four-note, and five-note warm-ups as we do in lessons. Please start easy, and don't play high notes too early in your practice session. Even if you can hit the high notes, it is best to start in the low to mid range of the instrument for the sake of your long-term endurance. Woodwind player (and brass players) can work on their flexibility with a variety of interval exercises, such as this one: Go up a "C" scale slurred in this pattern: C D C E C F C G C A C B C C-high. This can be done on any and all scales that you know, throughout your range. It can also be done backwards (ex., C-high, B, C-high, A C G C F C E C D C C-low). It increases your accuracy and consistency as you compare each note of the scale with the fundamental C.

SCALES

Once a student can play all the notes in the basic elementary band range (usually found on the last page of your book), you should then take on the task of learning all 12 major scales as soon as possible. Most band students should have a goal of memorizing at least 7 or more of the 12 major scales by the end of sixth grade. Certainly playing though all 12 can be very helpful. Then you can play any band piece or solo that is put in front of you because you know all the notes!!!. Once a student knows their scales, then you should try to play them faster, and also play them with different articulations like stacato (short) and legato (slurred). Then, one scale at a time, try to play them for two octaves. I've been talking almost exclusively about woodwind and brass players until this point. Percussionists: Your scales are your rudiments. There are 26 scales that a typical high school student has learned by the end of their school-music career. Take every rudiment that has been assigned to you and review it: 5-stroke, 9-stroke, 17 stroke, and long rolls, paradiddles, flams, flam-taps, and then some of the more advanced ones when you are ready.

A side-note for Percussionists : Your scales are your rudiments. There are 26 scales that a typical high school student has learned by the end of their school-music career. Take every rudiment that has been assigned to you and review it: rolls, flams, paradiddles, ratamacues, etc.

MUSIC READING

Once you are warmed up it's time to play some music. A musician always wants to increase his or her skills in reading music. This is why at almost every lesson there is a new assignment of a page or so of music to learn. When reading new music, do it slowly and carefully, yet still at a steady tempo. Be sure that you are counting the right amount of beats for each note. After your lesson assignment has been covered, read something for fun. It could be a past lesson or band peice, your current band music, solos, or a book of music from a music store. Try to not just limit yourself to the current band music only.

METRONOMES

One thing that will help every student with their rhythmic accuracy is owning a metronome - preferrably one with a loud click, rather than just a high-pitched beep. Any music store or on-line music catalogue will sell you one for approximately $16.00 Put the metronome at a slow speed at first, a speed that you can definitely line up your quarter notes or eighth notes with the beats that you hear from the metronome. Make sure that you are listening closely for whether or not you are with the metronome beat. Then when you can do that well, try it gradually faster.

C Major Scale