After talking about flexibility I would like to share with you my way of practicing the technical studies by Clarke. I think that the flexibility drills together with Clark's studies and Arban's book of course - those are my Trinity. I'm trying to to those drills every day and I try to do them as much as interesting as possible. I will have a separate post about random practice but I will just say that except of playing the drills with different kind of variations I also shuffle the drills. That means that I do flexibility, Clarke and Arban in one practice seesion in a random order. But as I said - more about it in the next post.
For now, just a few more words about my Clarke routine. I think those studies are fantastic to work about so many things and aspects of trumpet playing. First - those drills help me to make sure the air flow is consistent and without interruptions. The other thing is that I use those studies to practice different articulations and dynamics. I like to combine legato and staccato to make sure I use the air the same way and I use the repeats in the studies to use different dynamics. In this way I train many different aspects in just one drill. Very efficient!
So here are some short examples of how I make the drills more interesting. One way is to expand the registers. The other way is to use other keys and scales rather than major key. So it can be minor, augmented or whole tones for example. I also love to change the rhythms. In that way I never get bored, never practice mindless and always stay concentrated and in focus. The last thing I do - I change dynamics from forte to piano and vice versa. I always try, as I already said in my other posts, to keep the tone quality and to have clear articulations.
H. L. Clarke - Technical Studies: 2nd study (minor and rhythmic variation)
H. L. Clarke - Technical Studies: 2nd study (augmented)
H. L. Clarke - Technical Studies: 3rd study (expanded)