Trumpet Warm Up Drills – Free Online Trumpet Lessons

Whether you are a jazz or classical trumpet player, if you are serious about learning how to play trumpet you have no doubt been advised at some time to learn solid trumpet warm up drills. Have you heeded this advice yet? Learning how to warm up as a trumpet player when starting out a practice session is of vital importance to build high note range, solid tone quality and longevity.

Trumpet warm up drills – Breathing

Begin your warm up session by sitting upright in a chair with your trumpet in hand, and carrying out some breathing drills. All good trumpet warm up drills start with breathing. Before you play a note on your horn, take deep breaths in and out, for two minutes or more if you have the time.

Do not strain your lungs or abdominal muscles in an effort to take deeper breaths. Breathe in naturally, keeping a hand on your abdomen to feel how it fills with air until you cannot comfortably breathe in any further. When breathing out, try to count in your head until you can intuitively match the length of your in and out breaths.

Trumpet warm up drills – Long tones and scales

You are now ready to incorporate your trumpet into the warm up drill. If you have more than one trumpet mouthpiece, do you warm up drills on the largest mouthpiece cup size (lowest numerical number e.g. 3C) that you have. This will help train your embrochure muscles to produce the fullest sound through your trumpet.

Play a few long tones, starting on low “C” with all the valves open. Use a metronome in your warm up drills if you like, though it is not necessary. Again, hold your trumpet low tones as long as you can comfortably, but do not strain yourself. Never strain your embrochure or breathing during trumpet warm up drills.

Moving past long tones, procede in your warm up drill to play through every scale you know, in both major and minor keys. Focus especially on the scales you are not totally comfortable with. Start with the low “Ab” scale, the lowest note naturally produced on the trumpet, and work your way through warming up the major scales. Next switch to the minors.

Do not go any higher than the scales beginning on middle “g” in your warm up drills, unless you are a veteran high note player. The point of these trumpet warm up drills is not to stretch yourself to the limits. This comes later. Try to play each scale flawlessly, running through the notes as slowly as you need to. If you make a mistake, start over right away until you can play the major or minor scale up and down with no mistakes.

Trumpet warm up drills – Octaves

Finishing the trumpet scale warm up drill, it is time to push your range a little as you prepare for the meat of your practice session. Start on low “C” and move up in octaves, playing middle “C” all the way up to double-high “C” if you are able. If you are at the point in your development where you can only play one octave, fine, do that until you can play the octave comfortably and clearly.

Proceed up to “C#” and repeat the process, hitting every octave you can clearly. You’ll find that by persuing this warm up drill day after day, the high notes you can reach on your trumpet will rapidly improve.

It is important not to take this process out of order. The biggest trumpet practice mistake made by many players is to start by attempting to hit every high note they can on the trumpet, without proper breathing or warming up first. Doing this will ruin the longevity and tone of your practice session.

Ready to go on stage and don’t have time for a full warm up? Skip the high note drills, just this once, but make sure to do the breathing, long tones and scales before you play each time. Your body and your band will thank you.