Advice on Holding Horn

[DaveBari]

By the way, here's a nearly instant fix for bad posture. If you also get staff members yelling at you "STRAIGHT LEGS! STRAIGHT LEGS!" all the time you can also use this fix: squeeze your butt cheeks together. All the time. Forward march, backward march, everything in between. It's #### near impossible to lean back or go all bendy-leg when your cheeks are flexed.

UH OH!! BEWARE: clenching your butt while you march creates a MASSIVE amount of lower body TENSION!!! This results in a reduction of flexibility and SPEED control... marching is all about approaching the technique in a relaxed and tension free way... to understand this butt tension, squeeze your butt as described by taylor then swing your legs like a pendulum.... then relax your butt and do the same leg swing, you'll notice that the range of motion is increased as the butt gets relaxed... word to the wise: STAY RELAXED!

[Puppet]

Just do it

Yep.

for my baritone players i attach a pint size water bottle (at first) to the instrument during the winter camps, then when spring comes i fill the bottle with sand (keep the water... wet sand feels heavier) it adds significant weight to the horn... i call it the "strength and endurance program" i keep the bottle on until tour.

We used to gripe but BITD there was no time, no week, no month during the course of the year when we were not practicing, rehearsing, marching with or in some way for two or three hours per session, two or three times a week (depending on the time of year) so when the season rolled around, the horn was an extension of your body.

I haven't seen the new trumpet Euphs, but St. Joe's Patron played the biggest Euphoniums that were huge compared to the previous Baritones they had (and what a sound!) so were probably heavier, too.

We lived and traveled in and around NYC's 5 boroughs and carried our instruments in their cases to and from rehearsals let's say 155 days a year during the off season. Oh, and this was back when smoking was cool, there was no such thing as aerobics, and yoga was for hippies and sissies. I know, not PC - but there were no MAC computers, either.

These guys look stressed to you?

Puppet