As years go by I find my lip strength, breath control, flexibility and embouchure changing. At 83, I find myself struggling to play 8 beats without running out of air or my lip refuses to hold a note for the appropriate count.

Playing in a big band seems easier than playing classical concert band literature. I do practice daily using Brad Edwards Lip Slur book, Daily Routines for tenor trombone by David Vining, as well as the Arban Complete Method for trombone. Sometimes I find myself taking in pockets of air in my mouth maybe a result of weakening embouchure.

So I guess I'd like to know how some of my maturing colleagues are dealing with playing along with the aging process. Music is a huge part of my life and always will be. But playing can be very frustrating at times.

Hope to hear from you folks. Thank you,

Ron

Try closing the cavity up inside your mouth a bit, especially if you are used to playing with a "low open tongue, open tohhh" sound. Raise up your jaw a bit, move the tongue back and up to kind of hug the inner edges of your molars and the back of your pallette. It's the exact same mechanism to control registers when whistling. You control your registers with the front of your tongue. As you go up, the back of your tongue stays anchored, and you gradually push the front of your tongue forwards an close the space behind your front teeth.

This will allow you to be much more efficient with how you control the air you do have. A shallower mouthpiece might help, too, if you are playing something like a 5G (I don't know what your instrument or setup is. If it's a jazz horn you are probably fine).

I'm around 70. Two things help me:

1. Make sure my posture is as open as possible to get every last bit of air into my lungs that will fit there. Chest out, shoulders back, head up, and take in as much air as possible.

2. Be as efficient with air as possible. Play no louder than necessary. Make sure my chops are focused and aren't letting through any more air than necessary to make the notes sound good.

If I do both with every breath, I find I can still knock out some longish phrases.

First of all, kudos! Practicing every day to keep your love of music going is fantastic. I think most of your answer is going to involve air and air management.

[quote="DrTbone43"]Sometimes I find myself taking in pockets of air in my mouth maybe a result of weakening embouchure.[/quote]

Can you elaborate on this?

Sometimes I make myself conscious of the air inside my mouth, making sure it stays inflated (but not over-inflated) as I play. I think this can be a very useful visualization. The air supports the embouchure so that the muscles don't have to work so hard.

I think Dana's advice is excellent. Though I don't love the gulping idea - I prefer to think of air simply falling in - I imagine keeping my body ready for air so that no energy of the air coming in is moving the body out of the way to get to the lungs. The air just falls in to a vessel that is ready for it, rather than moving the vessel. I hope that makes sense.

As she suggests, think about playing smaller rather than bigger. A focused sound will project better than a spread sound, and you don't need to widen the airstream unless you are really trying to make a pillowy sound in soft dynamics.

I like what Harrison says too. I tend to think of controlling register with the back of my tongue more than the front, and I'm going to experiment.

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I'll add that as a not particularly big or athletic guy who plays bass trombone for a living, I have to take a lot of breaths, sometimes more often than I would like to. The key for me is not so much to try to play longer phrases, but to make sure my breaths are happening efficiently and that notes before breaths still have some length and are shaped well.

To that end, my favorite breathing exercise device is the Breath Builder, which targets the turnaround. The ball drops if you hesitate between the inhale and exhale or vice versa. The goal is to keep it at the top over the course of several breaths. The turnaround is more important than how long you are able to keep exhaling.

<LINK_TEXT text="https://www.hickeys.com/music/brass/tro ... device.php">https://www.hickeys.com/music/brass/trombone/accessories/breathing_aids/products/sku037944-breath-builderbreathing-practice-device.php</LINK_TEXT>

I feel your pain. Though at 77, I am just a youngster compared to you. The aging change in performance was abrupt for me as I picked up the horn after laying off it for over 40 years. It was a bit of a shock to not be able to complete routine phrases in one breath.

I do breathing exercises for 15-30 minutes each day. They haven't provided massive improvement but the incentive spirometer and peak flow meter do show when I take a few days off. I think it is like any physical conditioning as we age - keeping active can only delay our decline. I've come to accept I'm getting older and just like cycling, running, putting up drywall, I just can't perform at the level of my younger self.

As far as chops, yeah that too. Even when playing professionally (50 years ago!), if I didn't have my horn at my face for at least 3 to 4 hours each day, my performance suffered. These day I put in only 45 to 90 minutes and really can't expect the same results.

Others offered more concrete help. I just wanted to take you up on sharing how others are dealing with aging. You have my admiration for keeping at it. I hope to still be playing and performing (and riding bikes, but not putting up drywall) in my eighties.

Ken

Yesterday I did go to my music school just to practice. My neighbour asked me if I was going to a concert. He is a trainer for one of the best football teams around. I told him I was just going to practice. Thats good he told, you have to practice to get better. I didn't answer much, but he was right. We can discuss forever how to practice, but somehow we all have to do it. In fact I like to practice, at least to maintain and have some alone time and enjoy. So the best advice I can give is to go practice and have some fun!

Leif

[quote="Savio"]Yesterday I did go to my music school just to practice. My neighbour asked me if I was going to a concert. He is a trainer for one of the best football teams around. I told him I was just going to practice. Thats good he told, you have to practice to get better. I didn't answer much, but he was right. We can discuss forever how to practice, but somehow we all have to do it. In fact I like to practice, at least to maintain and have some alone time and enjoy. So the best advice I can give is to go practice and have some fun!

Leif[/quote]

THIS.

I am 78, I no longer “practice” after 50+ years of professional performance in all genres, I pick up the trombone and play music. Even if it is maintenance exercises (Stamp, Remington, Reynolds, others including my own). Focus on music rather than trombone sounds.

[quote="Jimprindle"]I am 78, I no longer “practice” after 50+ years of professional performance in all genres, I pick up the trombone and play music. Even if it is maintenance exercises (Stamp, Remington, Reynolds, others including my own). Focus on music rather than trombone sounds.[/quote]

I call that practice. If it's not to play music, what are we doing this for?

What matters most to me is that playing is fun—and that practicing is fun. I focus on things that give a lot in return, especially areas I have previously neglected. Right now, I am rediscovering circular breathing, which I used only sparingly before, mainly to extend a note when I ran out of air. Now I am trying to play my Swedish folk tunes using circular breathing exclusively.

At the same time, I am experimenting with circular breathing and slide vibrato, applying both to whole notes, half notes, quarter notes. I also try to master circular breathing while doing eighth notes. It's a lot trickier. I believe cirkular breathing will become even more essential as a skill as I get older and my lung capacity decreases.

I practice the solo pieces I want to perform until I know them by heart. I revisit the etude books I own and buy and play minus-one repertoire in both jazz and classical styles. I rotate between the different trombones I have, changing mouthpieces, brands, sizes, and so on—everything to keep playing as varied and enjoyable as possible.

I have also changed my warm-up routine. I now start with long tones in the middle and low registers for about ten minutes before moving on to anything else. After that, I spend around twenty minutes playing my folk tunes. I’ve noticed that I really benefit from this later on: I can then play almost anything for the rest of the day without needing to warm up again. Previously, I usually needed at least a couple of minutes of warm-up, but now it doesn’t seem necessary in the same way.

Two or three hours later, I can start on almost anything in my repertoire, and the earlier warm-up is still sufficient. I also work on improving and extending my technical limits, making sure to reach the extremes of my range, practice false tones, doodle tonguing, and all the other articulations I use.

I play at least 40 minuter a day but often a couple of hours. I have a day job too so it isn’t really possible to practice much more. I also play in three different bands regularly each week and three other bands on occasion.

I'm 62.

Now time to play.

/Tom

We all slow down as we age, but there have been many phenomenal brass musicians who continue playing well as they get older. Maybe catch a lesson or three with someone to see if you might make any improvements in how you're playing. Lessons with good teachers can be fun and inspiring to boot!

Dave

Just an experiment to try based on a sample.size of one. Ditch the Edward’s book for a bit and substitute in something like a Bordogni or Concone etude for cantabile practice. My personal (sample size of one mentioned above) with playing lots of no tongue stuff was that when I tried to play something else my set up was out of whack. To sound great on the etudes my mouth cavity and tongue position were very different than what I needed to play an articulated passage. Other than the breath control part, the troubles you mention are very similar to what happened to me with too much slurred playing.

On breath control, how long has it been since you did direct breath control work? Something like playing America (God Save the King) as far as possible in one breath at 60 bpm.

The advice given in the above replies is better in terms of overall application. This is just a couple specific ideas for you to take or leave as seems appropriate.

I don't have anything to help you. But at 48 I have my own issues. A year ago when I started playing again after having stopped when I was a teenager, I ran into my own issues as I was getting reacclimatized. I found on both my .500 bore and .547 bores I would run out of air after a 4 count measure. So the struggle was real! I think I was plain doing at least 4 things inefficiently: one, I was over-blowing the horn. Two, I wasn't breathing a deeply, fully enough. Three, I was over punching instead of using an appropriate embouchure, which Doug helped me with. Four, using a focused air stream. For me, it was an efficiently question not an equipment issue. Good luck with your problem solving your particular issue(s)!

I think you might try mixing up your practice routines. Maybe other etudes would help you grow again or regain your air efficiency? Or maybe just breathe more often? If the lung capacity thing is starting to be an issue. No rule that you can just breathe sooner. Often Tuba players take this approach (some of them but not all or even most). I'd try challenging yourself with different, new etudes.

If you want a particular, isolated practice technique. Maybe google some of the youtube vids on breathing for trombone? Anyone who starts with your chest, head, neck should be like a dummy or a marionette with strings pulling you up and forward into goo posture would be where I would start.