TromboneChat

Hey all,

I just came off a really intense week long stretch of gigs & rehearsals.  Now I'm not normally used to thinking about endurance problems because it's honestly, not been much of a problem, but after this stretch of gigs things definitely felt different.  I took all of Sunday off, and came back on Monday by doing my traditional warmup, much slower than usual and with lots of rest.  Good tone quality is still there & my range is still there but everything feels very tender and fragile.  I can definitely feel it right after playing, but not during, and not after maybe 20 minutes or so of rest.

I've done some searching through the forum for similar issues and came up with these suggestions: icing the chops, lots of soft long tones in the mid-range.  My question to more experienced forum members is: What do you suppose the damage is?  Can I expect a long recovery?  I work as a private brass teacher so it's hard for me to get many more full days off; I can get maybe one per week.  Will that be enough?  Many thanks in advance for your help!

Play some, but no more hard playing days for a while so your muscles can recover. It won't feel exactly the same after that because the muscles will then be stronger.  Rather than soft long tones which tend to make you stiff, I would do lots of soft lips slurs.  Then gradually work in a lot of variety so you learn to deal with the new feelings.

It's too late for ice, you should have done that during the week of hard playing.  Advil might help now.

Quote from: Doug Elliott on Apr 05, 2017, 05:18AMIt's too late for ice, you should have done that during the week of hard playing.  Advil might help now.

I guess some lessons are learned the hard way.  Thanks for the feedback.

- Kevin

Quote from: Doug Elliott on Apr 05, 2017, 05:18AMIt's too late for ice, you should have done that during the week of hard playing.  Advil might help now.

I guess some lessons are learned the hard way.  Thanks for the feedback.

- Kevin