[Trombone-l] Practicing

[Doug Rowe]

I have a question for all those who regularly practice their trombones:

What do you practice?  I'm not looking for exercises or routines--more, 
what kind of music to you play each day?  Do you polish everything you 
play to perfection?  Do you spend hours sight riding?

In order to maybe help clarify HOW folks should answer this fairly 
generic question, here's what prompts me to ask:

I have recently had a change in attitude toward the instrument--not in a 
bad way, but it's taking a different place for me in my life.  Since 
college (I'm currently 27) I have always been entertaining the idea of 
attending graduate school for trombone in the back of my mind, even 
while working as an engineer.  I've written the list about this a few 
times, folks advice was very helpful.

In the past few months I switched jobs, still in technology, and am 
loving what I'm doing.  It's something that I think I'm going to stick 
with for a while--a career.

Which is where the change in trombone mentality comes in.  I have been 
practicing for the past 5 years in preparation for a graduate school 
audition.  Excerpts, solo pieces polished, re-polished, buffed, then 
shined up again.

Now, I'm playing for fun, instead of with a specific goal, aside from 
the goal of performing well in the local/community ensembles that I play 
with each week.

So...

The question comes up, what to practice?  I need to keep my chops up, 
but I'm tired of reading my way through 15 Rochut and Blazevich etudes 
every day just to keep my lip.  I'm also tired of working up solo pieces 
that I'll probably never get the chance to perform (The Hidas Meditation 
just doesn't work well as a worship piece in a Lutheran church). 

I do some solo performing, but generally it's in church--mostly shorter 
pieces that are not overly challenging.  I would like to keep growing as 
a player, but, I'm a goal driven person--with out a big goal, I'm 
finding it hard to get motivated to put the time in on the horn like I 
used to.

Don't get me wrong--I still love to play, and I am doing somethings now 
that I NEVER used to do--trying to play more pieces by ear, trying to 
improve (learn?) improvisation by playing along with CD's or the 
stereo.  But, I'm at a point where I'm just out of ideas about WHAT I 
should practice.

So, I turn to the list, where I'm sure plenty of others have been in a 
similar situation.

What do you practice?  If you want to throw a "why" component into that 
question, I'd be interested too, but I wouldn't hold anyone to that.

Thanks!
Doug