I hereby move

[VJOFan]

that given how players can easily lose focus, and so, get little value from daily routines or warm ups, that warm ups should be renamed daily patterning. The name change would refocus the concept of the beginning stages of a day's playing from getting ready to play, to a more productive idea of establishing and improving playing form.

Seconder?

Discussion?

[BGuttman]

A warmup is actually a way to prepare for playing. The Remington Warmup studies were not really a warmup (although a couple of the exercises can be used as such) but really a technical study.

Warmup can vary from a few honks on the mouthpiece to a slow and methodical way to get all the juices flowing to prepare for playing. But anything over about 20 minutes or so is no longer a warmup -- it's drill.

Part of our practice should always be the fundamentals long tones, scales, arpeggios, lip flexibilities, volume dynamics, etc. Even though the exercises are pretty simple, the act of reinforcing the patterns helps when trying to apply them to music.

[timothy42b]

Warmup can vary from a few honks on the mouthpiece to a slow and methodical way to get all the juices flowing to prepare for playing. But anything over about 20 minutes or so is no longer a warmup -- it's drill.

I was watching a sports technique video by Scott Stokely the other day. He cited a study that looked at athlete's preparation time before starting an action - throwing a dart, etc.

It turned out that the optimum concentration time was 2 seconds. Any shorter and the person hadn't really concentrated, any longer and they started to lose focus.

Maybe we should add that to our first note of our first warmup.

[VJOFan]

Between a post a little while back of Lindberg's warm up (which he clearly pointed out was his way of fostering consistency in his base playing form) and my running work, I've re-evaluated the pre-work out phase of a session.

I haven't thought of my pre-running routine as warm up for a while. There are quite a few things I do before, during and after a run that are all designed to promote an efficient and injury resistant form. I wish I had thought that way about practicing in university. I would have gotten so much more from all those post breakfast sessions getting in my 1 hour of "warm ups" before I could start practicing and rehearsing for the day.

[Bach5G]

I confess that a lot of my warmup takes place in front of the tv, CNN, and MSNBC. Sort of like running with headphones and with music to distract you from the sheer monotony.

As an aside, many might like to have a look at Ilan Morgenstern’s Trombone Exercise Library Project for a compilation of graduated warmup/trombone basics.

[baileyman]

Someone here or TTF related a comment from some other instrument player, "Why do trombone players warm up without hardly moving the slide?"

Fontana said he "played a few slurs", which for him were in some tonality, maybe in a song's changes, in time, with lots of partial change, lots of doodle, side slipping, scalewise patterns and maybe some pedals. If that worked okay, then he was done.

[euphobone]

I don't really warm-up. Maybe a little breathing, and some buzzing. Then I move on to my long tones, slurs, and technical exercises --- None of which I really consider warming up, since I'm already working on SOMETHING starting on the first note I play (Air flow, attack, tone, etc.)

[ChadA]

I think it's important to separate our personal daily musical work into (at least) three categories: warm-up, routine/daily drills/skill building, and practice. Often the first two get lumped together.

Warming up is exactly what it sounds like: getting ready to play anything (your routine, practice, rehearsal, performance). It's what you have to do each day to do anything else; no more, no less. There's a ton of value in discovering exactly what this entails for each of us (because it's different). And it will likely change a bit through time and/or in response to what else you have to do that day. Getting to know yourself well enough to figure out what you need is a huge part of musical growth. Teachers can help with this, of course.

Routine is the stuff you like or want to do to build or maintain skills; you have to be warmed up for this to be most effective. Many people like to do this as part of the warm up and before they play anything else. That can work, but there's value in moving things around and sometimes playing your routine late in your musical day. If you find you have to play your routine in order to play other things, I'd argue it's a warm-up, not routine.

I have a short, focused, goal-oriented warm-up. After that, I can move onto any other playing.

Of course, philosophies and mileage vary greatly. I studied with people whose warm-ups were measures in seconds' worth of blinding lip slurs but I realize that's not the norm. By comparison, I feel like a loser with my 3-5 minute warm-up.