One thing I haven’t described is my practice routine…

During the week I only get to practice on Wednesday & Friday. I’m pretty bummed about that because I used to practice every day. I do however come home and work on long tones and lips slurs using the Yamaha Silent Brass system before going to bed. On Tuesday I have community band practice. Every 3rd Thursday in the month I have jazz band practice (I wish it more regular).

My practice always starts the same Long tones starting on 2nd line G and ?spidering? up to G on top of the staff and down to F#. After long tones I perform lip slurs through all fingerings. On the open fingering, I usually only slur up to 3rd space C but recently I have started slurring up to 4th space E (though it is not smooth yet). I sometimes slur using the Irons exercises. After slurs I move to Clark #2 for articulation. I will slur an exercise the first time, tongue it the 2nd and then use alternate articulations – it’s kind of hard to explain. I usually rest a minimum of 10 minutes between each of the above exercises. After the above – my practice routine varies. I will either work from an etude book, practice music from the community band, work some improvisation, transcribe a solo or write one for one of my many play-a-alongs

Today I actually extended my warm up because I wanted to focus on good tone and clean articulation. Perhaps I’m over critical but my tone is dreadful. I don’t sound like a trumpet. I sound either like a flugelhorn or a trombone. While I do want to have a warm ‘Miles Davis’ or ‘Ingrid Jensen’ type sound – my sound is muddy. I sometimes wonder if my lips are rolled in too much? This is something I plan to research today