When I was in junior high, I played on my school's volleyball team. My first year on the squad, I struggled with getting my serves in play and by the season-ending tournament, I was so in my head about serving that I switched to underhand serves (scorned like Dance Dance Revolution on the super slow setting). Over the summer before next year's try-outs, I practiced my serve against the wall of my house every afternoon. I must have served close to 2000 serves that month and I would go until I could hit 10 powerful, accurate, well-timed serves without missing. That second season, I was a changed pre-teen. I never missed a serve and became something of a clutch ace-hitter. But, every single time I had to serve, I would expect to fail. I would dread it, even picture the ball bouncing pitifully 6 feet in front of me, but somehow, miraculously, my newly-skilled muscle memory would take over, and the ball would sail over the net.
This is how I think about high horn playing. I struggled to play high horn for so many years of my life. It was my Achilles heel, the unwieldy psychological baggage I carried into every audition, the thing that I tried to deflect in lessons. But after many years of practice and horn therapy, I have
wrestled that demon to a TKO. By the end of school, I had a very passable high range and nowadays, it rarely is a problem in most any professional situation. Yet still, whenever I receive new music for a gig, I scan for "high notes." And tonight, I started practicing knowing that I'd focus on "high notes" with very low expectations. But when I started playing, my high notes were fine. They just sailed right over the net, thanks to my years of serving those high notes (many more than 2000) against the wall.
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| Get it, girl. |
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