Sample Practice Plans

The basic outline of a Left Coast practice plan looks like this

• Breathing exercises and routines
• Buzzing exercises
• A simple exercise done the same way every day
• Arpeggio exercises
• Tonguing exercises
• Exercises for special problems or to develop other techniques
• Long tones
• Scales
• Reading and learning music

Each of our exercises can be extended or leveraged. For example Exercise 1b might be played as plain as possible or with decrescendos on the last note, or continued on as low as possible, etc.

For a young student or beginner the entire routine before the music might only take ten minutes, for an advanced player it can be an hour or more.

Sample Beginner Practice Plan
Ten minutes

• Reverse Ho Ho Ho and 6 Places
• Mouthpiece buzzing exercise
• Exercise #1b (done allegro with brick shaped notes)
• Exercise #8
• Long tones
• Scales
• Etudes, solos and music preparation

Sample Intermediate Practice Plan
Half hour

• Reverse Ho Ho Ho and 6 Places
• Mouthpiece buzzing exercise
  
• Exercise #1b (done allegro with brick shaped notes)
• Exercise #2
• Exercise #3
• Exercise #4
• Exercise #6
• Exercise #8
  
• Long tones
• Scales
• Etudes, solos and music preparation
• Exercise #1a

Notice that Exercise #1a is always done last and every other day.

Sample Practice Plan for a Professional Player or Advanced Student
45 minutes to an hour

• Reverse Ho Ho Ho and 6 Places
• Mouthpiece buzzing exercise
  
• Exercise #1b (done andante and going down as low as possible)
• Exercise #2 (with extended variations)
• Exercise #4
• Exercise #5 (all versions)
• Exercise #6 (two octaves)
• Exercise #7
  
• Exercise #8 (for double tonguing, high and low range practice)
  
• Long tones
• Scales
• Etudes, solos and music preparation
• Exercise #1a

Ah vs Oh and the Reverse Ho Ho Ho

When you inhale you want to get the air down in the bottom of your lungs first. To do this we need to use an oh syllable when we inhale, not an ah syllable.

The more attention you pay to this the better player or teacher you will be. This is the most important concept in Left Coast Horn Playing.

For a teacher it is easy to hear when the student is breathing from Place #6. The 'oh' sound is unmistakable when inhaling and the deep, round tone color is unmistakable when playing.

Make sure the oh sound happens from the beginning of the breath to make sure the bottom of the lungs fill up first.

Left Coast Horn Playing has produced many fine adolescent players. It's simplicity and focus on what works gets their minds and bodies working on the right things.  In our quest to make things simple we came up with this idea to get the air low in the body. 

Santa Claus says "ho ho ho" and so do we. But we say while inhaling! Say it strongly and use the Place #6 muscles. You'll note that if you breathe from higher up you will say 'ha ha ha' instead of 'ho ho ho.'