long tones

I found a great (?) new way to do those boring long tones...which I never do because they are so boring. So hopefully this way I will at least do them, more than I ever did before! G suggests just using the reed, and he plays it (making the pitch vary about every second, hi lo hi lo hi lo) for one minute, taking breaths about every 20 seconds. Then you get one minute to rest. He started with 10 "sets", and now does 20 "sets" every evening while watching the news or reading. Great idea!

SO I get home and think, I'll use a stiff reed so I get a good workout. I can NOT make it for even 10 seconds before I need a breath! Then I am practically dying by 30 seconds, so I decide I will do 20 sets of 30 seconds each, with 30 second breaks. This actually worked ok, although I may be dead tomorrow! But I only have quintet, nothing they are paying me for, so I guess that's ok. But I can see that if you do this every day, it would be GREAT for building up chops.

Trying to stretch out now, not really sure how to do that. Now I will truly veg in front of tv.