Handling the Bad Days?

[DakoJack]

I am in the middle of a break during a practice session and today is a bad day on the horn. I'm sure you all know what I mean. The tone isn't as rich as usual, my tongue feels slow and heavy, everything is a little harder than a normal day. My question is what do you do on these days? What do you rely on do you lean into playing? get away from the horn? if you have a gig and can’t what do you use to muscle through? I find myself really focusing on air a very Arnold Jacobs Song and Wind philosophy but I am interested what everyone's thoughts are I have heard many opinions.

[Elow]

Some days, picking up the horn is a win for me. It’s really hard to change your mindset if you’ve got upcoming auditions, performances, and any other pressure, but it’s all a part of the journey. Stress can really ruin your mindset, but try to make smaller goals for yourself.

[norbie2018]

Keep practicing toward your goals. We've got to be able to play even when things don't seem to be working out because you might have one of these days when you need to perform. Break your larger goals into smaller chunks, that seems to help me.

[norbie2018]

And song and wind won't help you if your mechanics are off, at least it doesn't help me when mine are awry.

[Burgerbob]

I don't love the bad days, but they are where you actually get better- you have to figure out the mechanism that isn't working at the moment. The more you use them as learning moments, the fewer those bad days become, and the less harsh.

Even today, when I got the horn out to teach a lesson, my body felt like one of those bad days. Not something I can necessarily put into words, but things felt a bit wooden, slow... you all know the feeling. Guess what? I played fine. I focus a bit more on the good habits, set/breathe/play and boom. Everything works. Maybe I have to use the brain a bit more at first, but after a couple minutes I can tell it's going to be fine.

I actually can't remember a day where I just had to put the horn away completely for the last year+. Of course, when you get out in the real world those opportunities to just NOT play are few and far between- I actually try to schedule days off instead!

Anything you can do to eliminate the obvious variables is going to help: are you sleeping well? Drinking water? Eating well? If you're hung over, are you getting some electrolytes? Horn is in good shape? Clean and oiled and not leaky? Is your mind in the right place? Got weird nervous energy? I find taking a 10 minute walk improves my practice immensely when I feel strange, for instance.

This is why I keep a habits journal- I write down all the things that seem to help me sound good on a consistent basis, so when I have a bad day I can whip that out and read through the list. Oops, I was forgetting to keep my corners engaged when I was slurring down... that's why my slurs feel so bad today. Take the load off your brain and keep those things somewhere else for those rainy days.

[harrisonreed]

Drink water. Do some stretches. Try playing again.

[calcbone]

Long-term, try to have a bank in your mind (or write it down!) of a set of “keys” to your playing that help you sound your best.

Maybe you remember something a particular teacher said or a particular change you made/something you focused on at one time that made a big difference in your playing. For me, that was studying with Mike Becker for the one year he was at UGA, and how he taught me to rethink how I held the horn & avoid tension in my body.

Or maybe you remember a certain performance or other moment where you were really proud of how you played…try and get back into that moment/mindset or whatever. I had a few of those early on (sorry, this part might have ended up too long…)
First, when I auditioned for the wind ensemble and made it my second semester of college by just practicing the 1st movement of the Rimsky-Korsakov concerto on my own over Winter Break, then going in there and confidently tearing it up on the audition. Probably my best audition performance ever, in terms of my confidence and playing absolute at the time. Another one was an orchestra concert my first year of grad. school, we did “Les Preludes” and I was playing principal…if you know the big brass moments that occur a few times in the piece, with the arpeggiated eighth notes (you probably know what I’m talking about if you’ve heard the piece)…in between those arpeggio figures, there’s a little dotted quarter figure in the trombones that’s kind of exposed (principal has C, E-flat, F, E-natural) and even though it’s just a small moment in context, I was just really proud of how heroic I sounded on those notes in the recording.

[TheBoneRanger]

[Crazy4Tbone86]

I have found that the best way to fix "bad days" is to change course. I usually start my day with a combination of long tones and lip slurs. If my sound is bad or my breath control is unstable, I completely change direction and work on something like fast tonguing or wide intervals. I basically keep changing my focus until I find something that is going very well. Usually, when I find something that is "locked in" I can circle back around to the other things and they are noticeably better. Ever since I started using this technique, I rarely have a bad day.

I think every day is a little different for every musician. It sometimes takes a bit of creativity to find what your strength is at the beginning of each practice session. Don't beat yourself up if a particular skill is rough at the beginning of any particular session. Find something that is working well and build up from that.

Another thing, my philosophy is......with a good sound, I can accomplish anything. Thus, a great sound is one of my first objectives. I do anything I can to get my sound full and rich with no wiggle. Once that is accomplished, almost everything else is easy.

[ithinknot]

I do anything I can to get my sound full and rich with no wiggle. Once that is accomplished, almost everything else is easy.

I'd read that most things boil down to response/production issues, but it wasn't until recently I realized how true that was. Having corrected and stabilized some basic formation stuff (thanks Doug) so many 'other things' turned out not to be problems any more.


To the original question:
Free buzz, if you've learned/been taught how to do it correctly (see Reinhardt/Doug), and find your way back in from there.