Exercise 10

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Exercise 10 develops clean slurs and builds fingering technique and tonal awareness.

To play Exercise 10

• Start with a big deep low breath
• Play the accented notes louder than the tonic note and play them louder until the end of the notes
• Try to have the same tone color as you descend to the lower scales

Exercise 9

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Exercise 9 is to develop a way of playing that does not decresendo on the note before a tongued note.  It also helps us to play large sudden intervals using the air to change notes.

To play Exercise 9

• Breathe correctly and tongue cleanly
• Speed is not important. Go slowly and be careful
• Play the dotted quarter notes all the way until you absolutely have to tongue the eighth notes
• Make brick shaped eighth notes and sudden slurs
• Use more air on the eighth notes than the dotted quarters. Aim at them with the air, right in the middle of your mouthpiece

Exercise 8

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Exercise 8 is a great all purpose exercise. We use it to develop strong sffz accents and air coordination. We also us it to teach double tonguing, transposition, high and low ranges etc.

To play Exercise 8

• Be brutal on the sffz notes
• Do not hint (crescendo before the sffz, for instance)
• Practice Slow to Fast repeating each section many times

Be really brutal on the sffz notes. Since this is about air control it's ok if no note comes out! As long as the air is really shot hard into the horn it is good. If the note clams it's ok. If it clams, do not reduce the amount of air to get the right note!

Exercise 7

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Exercise 7 is a trilling and control exercise.

To play this exercise

• Make sure the eighth notes are very cleanly tongued and short
• Hit the lower notes of the trills hard so they have the same volume and color as the higher notes
• Start by using a hard breath accent to get the notes to change then back off as you get control 

Use the F horn fingerings as indicated. Go slowly at first. When you are proficient you can begin working upwards starting on C#, using Bb horn fingerings.

Exercise 6

Exercise 6 is designed to give you light fast tonguing and to work on the coordination and timing of the air.

To play this exercise

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• All the notes other than C should be louder than C
• The change in dynamics occurs during the change between notes
• Make sure you don't rush off the first note of each beat
• Do the exercise 2 ways; first as written then do the first 13 notes Slow to Fast

Players who habitually stop notes with the tongue may have trouble playing this lightly and quickly. The problem occurs when the notes are both started and stopped with the tongue or the tongue gets 'stuck' and full of tension. The Slow to Fast part of this exercise really reveals this problem and can be used to fix it.

Exercise 6 can also be used to teach transposing and double tonguing.

Exercise 1

Exercise 1 is our most basic exercise. We do it daily no matter our ability level. It is the equivalent of a chef sharpening his knives to get ready for the day's work, or a flower arranger cutting and laying out the flowers before arranging them.

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The main goal of the exercise is to produce three totally brick shaped notes. That means that it starts with a clean T tongue and blow through all three notes as if they were one note. The air flow should not increase or decrease during the note.

This is most important at the ends of the first two notes. Do not go flat or get quieter at the ends of the notes.

Let your fingers do as much of the work as possible. We want the lowest note at the end of the exercise to sound and feel as much like the first note as possible.

You will find of course that some notes do not speak as well or have the same tone color as the others. While this may be cause by numerous factors it is most often because of intonation. When you hit a note that doesn't speak well try moving your right wrist to adjust the intonation.

Go as low as possible every day. For many students the lowest notes will be out of your range. That's ok, just play as low as possible every day. If you can play all of the notes here just try to go lower every day.

This is a wonderfully extensible and leveragable exercise. Sometimes we alternate between hard accent on the first note and sneaking in as quietly as possible.  You can play the middle of the three notes stopped.  Sometimes we tongue all three notes, the first one very hard, the middle one normally and the last note legato tongued.

But whatever variation you are working on do it the same way every day for at least a week.

A great way to learn to control the air from Place #6 is to put a decrescendo on the last note, dying away without letting the tone color change. If you move the control up from Place #6 while you are playing your tone color will get dull and thin. You want to hear a bright shiny sound all the way down.

If you control the air from too high up your throat and the thick part of your tongue in the back will move, changing the sound of the note. Try to keep the note as boring and simple as possible. You will see that the only way to do it is to control the air from Place #6 through the entire note.