Advice on Holding Horn

[superdonndonn]

Hi i was wonder what can i do to build my arms to hold up a Marching Euphonium? Its a Dynasty.

[Martybucs]

Just about every exercise you can think of.

It's not just your arms, but your shoulders, your back, your abs...everything, because you just don't want to be able to hold it. You want to be able to move and play it at the same time.

Lots of isometric exercises you can do anywhere pretty discreetly anywhere and anytime. You can get some dumb bells and work out with them - they usually come with a sheet of exercises for you upper body.

Always practice standing up holding the horn up the way you would in corps.

Good luck to you.

[Shadow_7]

I used to use a boat anchor tied to a rope. That way you only lift the anchor a little. So when you reach failure, you don't have to replace the floor. Holding a folding chair over me while laying on my back seemed to help too. Advance up to just horn, then just case, then horn in case. Lots of options, but really there's no substitute from just using the horn as it's meant to be used. It's more about learning to relax while holding it, and otherwise ignoring pain. If you don't relax, you fatigue fast, really fast. A common mistake before doing a show is to almost hold your breath. You almost have to consciously remember to breathe, and if anything intentionally taking deep breathes before performing. Otherwise you spend the entire show playing catchup for holding your breath for the fifteen minutes before the show.

HTH

[Spaml6]

When I marched Euph, we put 2 1 pounds weights on the horn for rehearsal. One was around the bell, and one was underneath the valve casing on those support bars.

The first month or two, you get your butt kicked. You hold your horn like normal, trying not to "break" because "pain is for the gain". The longer you can hold it up, the better off your gonna be. Towards the end of rehearsal for ensemble we always took off the one on the bell...you would be surprised how much lighter the horn feels just taking one off. When we took off both for shows, holding the horn was NO problem!

Of course, you need to do alot of other excerises to build your "core" and arms.

[CoolGuyCali]

Go "old school" do Shups!

Hi i was wonder what can i do to build my arms to hold up a Marching Euphonium? Its a Dynasty.

[Shadow_7]

Push ups don't really work the same muscles. They do help, and build up your pecks so you can rest certain Euph + Mouthpiece combos on your peck(s). But those front shoulder muscles and central back muscles don't quite get the work they need with just shups. Euph isn't so much strength as it is endurance.

I'm not a big fan of adding weight to the horn. Some models of Euph fall apart from the stresses of their own weight, much less accelerated with modifications. Plus a number of Euphs are already bell heavy. One trick is to use a super heavy stainless steel mouthpiece most of the time, then put in a Kelly mouthpiece before that 5 mile parade. Roughly the same thing without the stresses on the weaker braces. You can also put those walking weights type things around your wrists. But Euph isn't so much about strength as it is endurance. It's a marathon, not a 100 yard dash.

You can empty your spit valve often and otherwise spin your horn to keep most of the condensation out of the horn. It helps in making your horn 1/2 pound lighter and otherwise keeping the internal tube shape round so it plays better. Keeping the horn clean so you're not carrying around 1/2 pound in mud that splashed onto the horn while it was grounded in the rain helps too. Of course back in the day, the Degs were advertised as a couple of ounces lighter than Kanstul. Not that the Deg felt lighter with the valve section being further away from the body.

[Martybucs]

Aw, just switch to trumpet

[JimF-LowBari]

(Pre-season tip)

When you practice at home stand in the "attention" position and make sure you're holding the horn with bell up at the right angle and elbows 45 degrees from the body. IOW, don't rest your arms against your body. Sounds dumb but it does build up endurance for the upper arm muscles. Plus it's a time saver as you're doing two things at once (music practice/muscle toning).

I rejoined a corps after 19 years away and this helped me. And my muscles were problably more than twice as old as your muscles.

[It's Godzilla!]

To get chops holding your horn up, nothing will do a better job than... holding your horn up.

[Buick]

I've been holding dumbbells up in front of me as if I were holding a euph, usually about a 7.5-10 lb weight in each arm. Seems to be working well so far. Others say a gallon of milk, just something heavy if you don't have access to a marching euph.

Although I've also been going to the gym everyday, doing chest presses, biceps and triceps exercises as well. I can't do pushups very well unfortunately, my elbows and wrists crack with a sharp pain everytime I do one, so I just go with the chest press to build up chest/pecks, but pushups can work too.