To properly warm up on trombone a significant amount of breathing exercises are required before playing any notes on the instrument. The large mouthpiece and lower register in the bass clef demand great air control and it's imperative to practice building up your air capacity each day during your warm up session. Long tones will also help to build your chops, and scales will improve your slide position flexibility.
Instructions
1. Sit in a comfortable chair or even a piano bench. Sit with good posture, making sure that your back is straight for optimal air production. Inhale deeply to begin air control exercises. Breath in for at least 4 seconds before exhaling. Exhale very slowly and pay attention to expunging all possible air from your body. Repeat this slow breathing for no less than 5 more minutes. As you continue to do this you should start to notice an increase in lung capacity. Begin each breath from your diaphragm and imagine the air moving slowly upward through your chest cavity to your throat and out your mouth. Visualization helps you to control the air as it moves out of your body. If you aim to expand your diaphragm at the beginning of each breath your air capacity will increase even more.
2. Take your trombone out of the case and attach the mouthpiece. Before playing any notes take 4 or 5 minutes to buzz your lips. Simulate scales and sustained pitches with your buzzing. Proceed to flutter your lips for 1 minute to achieve more blood flow through the muscles that surround your lips.
3. Play long tones. Pick any pitch above C3 and sustain it for at least 10 seconds. Repeat this process with pitches ascending in the chromatic scale. End the scale at G5. Begin again on your original pitch of choice, this time moving down the chromatic scale towards E2. Stop at E2 and begin ascending again to the same pitch at which you stopped your first scale. Further trombone warm ups are best served after you've had an opportunity to slowly warm up the air flow in the instrument, as well as your muscles, by utilizing long tones or sustained pitches in both the high and low registers.
4. Play melodic minor scales. Focus on your slide flexibility. Melodic minor scales, of all the basic scales available, force you to change slide positions in ways that are not always comfortable. Begin by playing a C melodic minor scale starting on C3. Ascend one octave and then come back down to the starting note. Repeat this same structure with additional melodic minor scales in the keys of D, Eb, F# and Ab.
5. Warm down with long tones. Completing your trombone warm ups without paying mind to relaxing your muscles can have devastating effects on your endurance. Pick any ten pitches above C3 and hold each one of them for at least 8 seconds. Start at a quiet dynamic and crescendo to forte. As you complete the sustained pitch come back to a piano dynamic. Repeat this same volume exercise for each long tone.
Tags: Repeat this, least seconds, minor scales, your lips, chromatic scale