[TPIN] Sick Days/Time Off Topic

[Michael Goode]

Sick days and any time off on the trumpet are very personal matters.    
It all depends on where you are on the instrument at the time you 
decide to take time off.   If you are playing very heavily as a 
professional or an amateur, it may be helpful to take some time off.   
The trick is to have gotten into some kind of mental slotting of how 
you play that you are able to recall mentally away from the horn of how 
you should sound so that when you go back to the horn you have that as 
a reference point.   Many principals from the Chicago Symphony under 
Georg Solti used private recordings of themselves to remind them of 
what artistc level their playing should be at so that when they would 
return from a vacation away from the instrument they could precisely 
recall where there playing was before they took time off.   They then 
got back into the practice room to match the prior level.   Arnold 
Jacobs told me many times personally that he would use home tapes of 
himself practicing Schlossberg exercises on the tuba as a reference 
point for him when he got back into playing after taking time off.

Michael Goode
www.trumpetworkspress.com