Endurance

GSCB concert the other day, and I hit the same old problem -- endurance.

Y'see, I don't play a whole lot. Once in a blue I do, and I usually pay the price. Back when I was a hot dog, I'd play all the time, and I had chops o steel. Now, I don't and I don't.

I practice maybe 4 days a week, and when I do it's for 20 minutes or so, and it's mainly warm-ups, some woodshedding and etudes. I rehearse one night a week. That's it. And that's why when I have to play for an hour straight, 30 minutes into it I start to lose my embouchure, and 45 minutes into it I'm taking things down an octave or not playing them at all simply because I can't.

I've got to fix this. Sadly, more practice isn't an option.

I'm going to take P.E.T.E. seriously. I bought one about 6 months ago and hadn't really used it much. I'm now seeing the value in it and plan to give myself a daily work-out. It focuses on the muscles I see as the ones that give out the fastest, mainly the corners and muscles around the mouth and face.

So the gauntlet has been thrown. By September I plan on having chops o steel once again.