The Practice Room

This page is devoted to practicing.  I will be adding more content soon. 

I use this warm up every day.  It is a great warm-up and is a good alternative to Reinhardt's Pivot Stabilizer.

New!!! Dave's Warm-up

After the warm-up I play one of the daily routines from the Reinhardt Routines:

The Reinhardt Routines - 
A Total Embouchure Development Plan

By Dr. Donald S Reinhardt
Compiled and assembled by Rich Willey
Consultation and editing by David H Sheetz

It’s hard to get excited over a new trombone method book. However, this book will excite many brass players who have been waiting for a practical method book based on the teachings of Dr. Donald Reinhardt.

I have been using some of the teaching methods of the late Dr. Reinhardt for myself and my students for the last year. The Warm Up #57’s are well received by my students and are a great basic introduction to Dr. Reinhardt’s approach to practicing.

Reinhardt’s methods are based on tried and proven techniques. Many of the method books in use today provide incorrect or misleading advice and I am reluctant to use some of them. Fortunately for us, Dr. Reinhardt has two dedicated former students that are making sure that the materials that Dr. Reinhardt used over decades of teaching are still made available. The latest publication is the most usable of the Reinhardt material published to date. "The Reinhardt Routines, a total embouchure development plan" is meant to be a stand-alone book which can be used without any use of the previous Reinhardt material. There is no discussion of upstream vs. downstream playing or much details of the pivot system. This can be found in the other Reinhardt publications.

Rich Willey and David Sheetz are responsible for this marvelous new book. There are 11 daily workouts as well as supplemental material. Included in this book are the great Warm Up #57 Exercises. These warm-ups are a masterpiece by themselves. I try to start my students on these as soon as possible.

Check out these links to find out more:
Rich Willey’s Pivot Publishing http://www.boptism.com/pipu.html 
David Sheetz’s Airstream Dynamics http://www.airstreamdynamics.com/index2.htm 

After each daily Reinhardt routine is the time I practice scales.  Sometimes I play a ballad or two before I start practicing scales.  On page 28 of the Reinhardt Routines is a suggested plan for scale and articulation studies.  I prefer my own scale routine which I believe is in the spirit of what Reinhardt recommends.