I thought I could share this odd experience that I'm sure we've all had at some point when nothing works, when you barely get any sound, when your lips don't vibrate, when you want to but actually can't play anywhere near the level you normally do. I'm having such a day today, and I think I know why. I was out on the lake all day yesterday, a wonderful trip by boat in the sun with a lovely breeze. I left home at ten in the morning and got back just before midnight. This meant I didn't practice at all yesterday. Until then, I had been playing every day for about two hours. I even finished with half an hour on the tuba, which I hadn't practiced in a long time. My lips felt real good. I've had so much fun and been in the groove, improvising with play a long cd and practicing my Bach Cello Suites, but today, hardly any sound. The lips won't vibrate. I'm sure it is not the result of just one day off but rather it's caused by the sun and the breeze I experienced yesterday. It comes back at me and hit me hard today
. I decided to still go ahead and do my 20-minute warm-up program with Swedish folk songs. It sounded terrible. The lips don't vibrate at the contact point. I still pushed through all my usual folk songs as an experiment. Would it suddenly start working? No. After the first 20 minutes, I switched from my Bach 11C to my Yamaha Nils Landgren to see if a larger rim could help. Nah, slightly better, but still the same dead lips. Now I'm going to rest a bit and see if the Shires MG mouthpiece, which is even larger, can get my lips going. It's been a long time since I've had such a bad day; let's see if I can learn anything from it.
/Tom
