My Practice Sessions: Elisabeth Fessler

Elisabeth Fessler is a member of the Harmonic Brass Quintet and Lecturer of Trumpet at Staatliche Hochschule für Musik Trossingen.

What time do you begin your first practice session?
When I am at home and not on tour, I usually start my warm-up routine at 9 am.

What is your daily warm-up routine?
My warm-up routine always starts with breathing exercises and mouthpiece buzzing. For the remaining part, I try to cover all aspects of playing. This involves slurs, lip flexibility exercises, articulation and technique, always combined with breathing exercises. At the end of the session, I integrate specific spots of the upcoming repertoire into my warm-up routine.

How long has this warm-up been a part of your practice sessions?
I started to develop a daily warm-up routine during my studies ten years ago. Usually every year I change the routine a little bit. That means I exchange a few exercises or add something new I discovered or developed by myself. It also happens daily that I have to add some more specific exercises in one of the different areas of playing.

How long is your warm-up routine?
I have a 45-minute warm-up routine when I play a 2-hour concert in the evening with the Harmonic Brass quintet. If I have the “luxury of time” in one of my off days, I prefer to focus on fundamentals, increasing the routine duration to 1.5 hours, improving efficiency in all aspects of playing.

What part of your warm-up do you look forward to the most?
I enjoy doing long tones, combined with flutter tongue exercises, for a big, focused and relaxed sound. I include exercises from Basics Plus by Wolfgang Guggenberger and the Shape Up by Frits Damrow. Also in this section of my warm-up, I created my own exercises, based on the two books mentioned above.

What different elements have you changed (or removed) from your warm-up routine over the recent years?
I have added some jazz scales like the blues minor scales as slurred arpeggios, as well as the Clarke 2 exercise as a blues scale version.

What time of day do you generally practice?
When I’m off, I actually practice all day long with breaks in between my sessions.

How many practice sessions do you typically have a day?
It depends on what I’m working on. If it’s light repertoire, I go for longer sessions with fewer breaks. That means 3-4 sessions. If I have a tough repertoire to practice, it can go to 6-8 shorter sessions with many breaks in between to avoid killing my chops. It also depends on how long I can stay focused and concentrated.

Do you have a strict time limit for each practice session?
No

How does your partner’s and/or family’s schedule fit into your practice sessions?
They are used to giving me the time I need for my practicing.

After your last practice session of the day, do you do anything the night before to prepare for the next day’s sessions?
I usually write down what I want to accomplish the following day.

Do you have any non-music related routines such as meditation or exercise to help prepare you for your daily warm-up?
Yes, I do, but I only use them under stressful circumstances, in which they help me to stay focused on what I need to accomplish.

What apps or products do you use to aid in your practice sessions?
I work a lot with the DAW Pro Tools to do recordings. I also sometimes use the Loop Station to keep the practicing fun and to work on creative stuff.

If you fail to not get in a solid warm-up, do you do anything different for the rest of your practice sessions?
For those emergencies, I have a ten minutes warm-up program which makes me feel comfortable and ready to play.

When you are on tour or traveling, how are you able to adapt your practicing to fit in with the given circumstances?
When I’m on tour with Harmonic Brass playing a 2-hour brass quintet concert, I just do a smooth warm-up and focus on the concert.

Is there anything else you would like to add that would be beneficial to other musicians?
Enjoy playing your instrument.