Mind and Lip Benders

Mind and Lip Benders Warmups & Daily Routine for Tuba and Euphonium [and other low brass instruments] Many things have been said about brass playing! Nowadays, there exists in the market many books with daily routine exercises and etudes, but what I keep seeing and listening in my travels around the world (of course, most of it), its that there are many good brass players but not so much interesting musicians! Why spending so much time playing exercises and etudes without a practical and musical focus? All the time spending with our instrument should be as much hard work as fun in order to have a good compromise between Art, Excellence and Joy! I believe that to have such a talent to make music it is a special gift that we all have! We all should have the maximum profit of it! Of course, I also believe in a hard and practical daily routine based on a physical philosophy - Mind vs Metal. This will be a kind of a "fight" that we never gone win! Knowing that, we need to be intelligent and practical to things to do every day in order to feel as good as possible physically and mentally, so that we can achieve a good performance at the highest musical levels. For a good daily routine: First of all, avoid all bad habits, have a good and relaxed posture, try always to make good, relaxed and efficient breaths and make the best sound possible in your horn! Of course, to have a good concept of " whats good sound?" it is extremely important! To be Creative and a good Actor it is also a very important side of our profession! Explore it and try as many things as you can! Be inspired by the methods of such a brilliant private detective as Sherlock Holmes, having an analytical approach and an auto-criticism on what you do now because It will decide and be decisive in what you gone do in the future. Always remember: WE ARE LEARNERS FOR LIFE! Having this in mind, I take the liberty to write down the fallowing texts, applied into the instrument by the legendary tubaist, Mr. William “Bill” Bell. These topics are, in my humble opinion, the best, most practical and efficient to obtain good musical results. Sérgio Carolino