BRUCE'S SCREAMER CLUB EXERCISES

DISCLAIMER--The effectiveness of these exercises is lost if your tone production technique is flawed. Generally, your chops must be close and relaxed while playing, you must use proper air volume and velocity, etc. I am not addressing these issues, and if this does not sound like what you are doing, get a teacher to correct these problems. I'm also not addressing "fingers" or overall musical expertise, which are both prerequisite to any true progress.

EXERCISE 1--THE GOOD OLD PENCIL THING

Get an unsharpened wood pencil. Close your teeth, and place the unsharpened end against them. Wrap your lips around the pencil, and let go, holding the pencil straight out in front of your face with only the muscles in the lips and surrounding area. Continue holding it straight out until your muscles burn. Rest. Repeat.

EXERCISE 2--PUCKER UP

Push your lips out as far as you can in an overly exaggerated pucker. Now focus the energy even harder, as if you have to hold some tiny object "in" this pucker by drawing your lips into an exremely tight drawstring effect. Hold this position until the muscles burn. Rest. Repeat.

EXERCISE 3---PUCKER-SMILE

As in Exercise 2, push your lips into the most concentrated pucker possible. Now reverse that facial expression and smile as widely as possible. Alternate between these two positions as fast as you can. Do this until the muscles burn. Rest. Repeat.

This is a DAILY regimen. Alternate these exercises in each "session" and keep it up for a couple of months MINIMUM. You will see results much sooner than that, but what you are trying to do is build the muscle in your face to extreme levels of size and strength. After a couple of months, every other day will maintain your progress. As with any physical conditioning, progress will come in leaps and plateaus. It's important to keep exercising through the plateaus to reach the next leap. It is also VERY important to do each of these exercises until you feel pain in the muscles being worked. Unlike playing the horn until you feel discomfort, which is highly destructive, the "pain" you feel in these exercises are the muscles telling the body and brain, "HEY, I need some help here, sign me up for some increased tissue." It's the equivalent of sending your face to the gym for some serious buffing up.

THE THEORY

So many players with poor endurance will just slave away on the horn, building bad habits and damaging tissue as they go. This can easily make a player, especially a young one, feel that progress will never come. And indeed it may not. Trumpet playing is an incredibly physical activity, the forces required for extended range being extreme.

Just as a football team begins spring training doing everything BUT playing football, a trumpet player needs to build an extraordinary facial muscle base before reaching success. It can certainly be done on the horn, but this is the SLOW way. I believe, and have ample evidence in my own playing that this series of exercises WILL do the trick.

An added benefit...you will never need a facelift. <g> These exercises WILL cha

nge even the appearance of your face, greatly enlarging the ring of muscle around your mouth.

Best wishes to anyone who tries this method. I have used it in my own private and class teaching over the years, and have passed this method on to many of my colleagues in the education biz. Nobody that has given it a serious application has failed to reach the goal of greater endurance and extended range. It's just common sense.

Subject: Re: Isometric ExercisesFolks:

A number of people have expressed an interest in the types of isometric exercises that I recommend for use when you must be away from the horn....Here are a few ideas which I hope you'll find to be useful in maintaining and developing your chops when you can't take the time to practice:

1. The first exercise consists of merely holding your lips closed, as in saying the *mmm* sound. When done correctly, this requires you to slightly roll your lips nward... Hold this position for as long as possible(you'll eventually be able to do it for hours at a time), until your muscles begin to burn, then rest an equivalent amount of time before repeating.

2. The second exercise is like the first, except that this time, besides the *mmm* position, you should also draw the lip muscles in, toward the center of your lips(avoid an obvious pursing, however). You should feel as though your lip muscles are *hugging* against your teeth. It is also important to keep the corners where they are when your mouth is relaxed while you are doing this(neither stretched outward into a *smile* nor drawn down as in a frown). Once again, hold until the muscles develop the lactic acid *burn*, then release, rest, and repeat...

3. This one is best done before a mirror, at least the first few times that you perform it, until you are sure that you are correctly performing the exercise. While observing yourself in the mirror, complete the following movements:

a). Roll your bottom lip out as far as possible.(Try to touch your chin with it). Be sure to keep the upper lip in contact with the inside of the bottom lip as you are doing this. Hold in the extended postion for a count of ten, then gradually roll the bottom lip back up, so that it is hugging the outside of the upper lip. Rest. Repeat.

b). Purse your lips as far forward as possible. Hold for a count of ten, then gradually relax them. Rest. Repeat.

c). Roll your lips inward, so that the red(membrane) of your lips disappears. Be sure that both lips are in front of the teeth as you do this. Hold for a count of ten. Rest. Repeat.

There are other exercises which are also beneficial, including that of bouncing a small paper tube between your lips(but, again, in front of your teeth--gripping the paper only between your lips)...With practice, you'll eventually be able to do this with a pencil or pen...

Finally, there is an exercise which I do all day long (when I'm not playing) which is difficult to describe with words, but creates a sort of a squawk when done correctly....Roll your lips slightly inward, then use your tongue to force air through them, stopping the air by having your tongue close against the r

oof of your mouth....With practice, it's possible to play chromatic scales this way, and it's a good way to prevent the dreaded *braccck* attacks, since your lips become more accustomed to placing pitches very accurately....