Exercise

Lindsay M is concerned about building endurance:

Don A. wrote to recommend Singer's book Embouchure Building for the Horn. This is fine as far as it goes, but notice that Lindsay is also concerned about left arm endurance as well. This issue is not adequately addressed in Singer's otherwise admirable book. Luckily, Singer can still be of use in your efforts to augment your left arm's power and muscle tone.

First, though, you need to develop the ideal left arm position. I have long advocated positioning the left arm so that your horn is at one end, and your shoulder at the other end. Punto, of course, held his horn in the crook of his elbow. The modern valvehorn player, however, finds the elbow somewhat lacking in dexterity, and so crooks have fallen out of fashion. Of course, with your fingers holding the horn, your elbow is free to prod nearby players, encouraging them to shape up and abandon their faulty ways.

By the way, I must disagree with Farkas on the subject of the left arm. His book has a picture of him playing a horn on a shelf. If you look carefully, you will find that his left arm does not make contact with the instrument! Very few players are so skilled that they can maintain zero contact between their left arm and the horn. This may work very well at low dynamic levels, but most players attempting this under normal, shelf-free playing conditions discover that their horns tend to fall to the floor, a location which challenges the ability of even the most skilled artist.

Building left arm endurance is easier if you understand the anatomy of that appendage. Your left arm contains a great many bones, such as the ulna, the radius, the carpals, the metacrapals, and the philanderers, all of which are boring, plus the humerus, which is somewhat droll. The elbow is the principal articulation; flexion is controlled by the bicuspid muscles, whereas extension is depends on the tricuspids. Basically, you want to develop the bicuspid muscles so you can lift the horn and push it as hard as possible against your embouchure. (Of course, you also want to develop the muscles of the embouchure, so that it can push back with an equal and opposite force.)

Here is a useful routine for building endurance in your left arm. First, get your copy of Singer's Emouchure Building for the Horn. Next, pick it up and put it down ten times. After a suitable pause, you add another horn method book (perhaps the Verne Reynolds etudes) and lift them together. After ten repetitions, you add yet another horn method. By the time you have advanced to Dauprat's Methode pour cor basse et cor alte, your left arm will so rugged that you will be able to play the last ten minutes of Mahler's First without taking your right hand out of your pocket.

Gotta go,

Cabbage