criteria for increasing flexibility speed

[auni53]

I want to play fast! Like all the great jazz trombonists. So I got Brad Edwards' lip slurs book, picked out good undertempos for the exercises I feel ready for, and I've been doing them every day. The progress has been great with respect to tone and flexibility, but I was wondering how I should evaluate whether to increase metronome speed. My two ideas:
a. Bump up the speed when I can play an exercise at a given speed perfectly and smoothly, with a good tone and consistent dynamics, and regularly with no errors or missed notes.
b. All of the above, but only increase the speed when I can play the line without moving my mouth, shifting my embouchure, or tightening up my lips, or changing the direction of my air stream.

Anyone have any thoughts?

[Arnondb]

That is some serious question here.
I will try to give you my two best thoughts on the matter:
1. What i’ve learned from Wyclef Gordon is to take the same routine every day and in the course of a week to notch up the tempo every day when the last day should be hardest and repeat these tempos. When you START feeling comfortable with the fastet tempo, you notch the whole thing up from the first day of the week.
2. Regarding your last remark, when you talk about embochure, air stream etc., I think it is best to consult a teacher and never speed up before you have the technic in place. I know from my experience that when I tried to study something and started with RIDICULOUSLY slow tempos, I managed to get it right and have a solid block of technic in my playing. When I was in a hurry to speed things up, I ended up with a lot of frustration.

I think that in general, your attitude is right. Hope I helped.

[AndrewMeronek]

Very fast playing often involves different muscle motions than slow playing, so just starting slow and gradually working up with the metronome sometimes doesn't get you there.

There are a fair amount of teachers (not trombonists; other instruments who study speed smarter) who advocate not just the metronome incrementing, but starting at very fast tempos but breaking your lick into very short chunks, while gradually connecting them. If you think about it, it make sense: many licks at fast speeds involve essentially moving the slide across multiple positions in the same direction smoothly, whereas when playing the same licks slow, it's appropriate to stop the slide for each note. Those are two totally different kinds of motions.

[Savio]

I'm not sure, but I think the embouchure have to function properly to make flexibility works. If it doesn't, it will never be fast or have a big range. No matter how much you practice. Maybe ask Doug Elliott or have a lesson with him to be sure.

Another thing to remember is whatever we want to achieve needs time and work. Mostly there is no short cut.

Leif

[BurckhardtS]

I think efficiency is the key to speed, where both correct form (embouchure mechanics) and strength meet. There is a lot of good posts here, but keep in mind for it to be fast, it has to be easy for you already and it can't be that way if you have bad form or not enough strength to do it in the first place. Flexibility, in my opinion, is one of the most important and most overlooked parts of brass playing. (and musicianship in general)

[Pre59]

Flexibility, in my opinion, is one of the most important and most overlooked parts of brass playing. (and musicianship in general)

I couldn't agree more. There's more fashion in brass playing than we often care to admit, and in my youth doing your "flexes" was de rigueur.

[Bach5G]

I have tried for years to develop a fast trill. Unsuccessfully. I wonder if it’s something some can do and some not. Slow twitch vs fast twitch muscles maybe.

[timothy42b]

I have tried for years to develop a fast trill. Unsuccessfully. I wonder if it’s something some can do and some not.

I don't think so. I think it's just that the standard approach (speeding up a flexibility into a trill) doesn't work, ever. A trill is something different. A trill can be slowed down into a flexibility, but a flexibility can't be sped into a trill.

I'm well aware that people lots smarter than me disagree. They may even be right. Still, approaching it this way might be a metaphor that works for you.

[Bach5G]

Okay. So how do you get a trill then?

[Pre59]

This?

[timothy42b]

Hah! Of course the first reply is someone who disagrees with me, and demonstrates it perfectly. That is some outstanding playing.

Notice a couple of things though. First, he calls it a slur. But when he demonstrates a lip slur, he's doing a lip gliss, and spending time on the intermediate tone. Second, when he demonstrates the trill on the fifth, he doesn't. He lip slurs a fifth, but when he moves into the trill, it's barely a second.

Okay, a third thing. "like most things on trombone, the way to learn it is slow." Cue Mr. Sulliman on this one.

So here's what I think. The lip trill is subtly different from how most of us amateurs do the lip slur. It's not much different, but enough to require a slightly different approach, at least to learning it. To hit on that slight difference is part luck, but we can always intervene with luck. We can practice our slurs at slow speed so thoroughly that we are very consistent - so consistent that we'll never hit on that difference.

I think this difference comes down mostly to control of the note between. Gliss your slurs like Pollard does, or Brad Edwards does when he does group warmups, or Dave Wilktone did in that flexibility video, or Doug does when he demonstrates his exercises, not like a lot of ams do with a pop and push of air. What happens if you play middle C in first? Well, the tone isn't great, obviously, but also that note wants to bounce between Bb and D. Take advantage of that. Also, from discussions on the OTJ with svenne and others, there needs to be a little tongue and jaw motion. If you get it working a little this way, you can probably get it more like the slur eventually.

Then, listen to some French horn. I heard a concerto on NPR the other day by Reikha (spelling?) that was mostly one long trill.

[SteveFoote]

I would never disagree with someone who obviously knows what he is talking about.
However, my ability to produce a basic lip trill took a much different route. Back then, there was no internet and I did not have a teacher. I was trying to learn to read treble clef music so that I could play from the hymnal in church. I was playing a familiar hymn and tried to play a D in third position. My brain and lips said D but my horn said C. This disagreement produced a warble. I was trying to lip the C up to D but of course I got an E flat. I didn't even realize what I had done at first but after a few minutes it hit me. Once that happened I was off and running.
Now I always start a trill by lipping the note up rather than down. Don't know if that is right or wrong but it works for me.
Try the way the way Dr Pollard demonstrated. Try real hard for a long time. If it just isn't working try something else.
Also, as a by-product of practicing lip trills I found that my range extended upward.
Please let us know if any of these suggestions help.

[peteedwards]

Okay. So how do you get a trill then?

get a trill valve

[Pre59]

Now I always start a trill by lipping the note up rather than down. Don't know if that is right or wrong but it works for me.

"The usual way of executing a trill, known as a diatonic trill, is to rapidly alternate between the note indicated and the note directly above it in the given scale (unless the trill symbol is modified by an accidental, understood to apply to the added note above; this is a chromatic trill)."