Taking breaks


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Posted by Josh Doran on July 07, 2002 at 23:20:43:

I've played tuba for a few years now, and when I just don't feel motivated about playing for a few days, or when i feel burned out, I take a few days off from playing. I don't think there is anything unique in that approach.

About 2 months ago, I had a 3 week period where I didn't have a tuba. I really didn't want to stop playing, and I lost a lot of ground in that time.

So I've been playing pretty steadily since early june, and then over this weekend, i was gone for 2 days so I couldn't play at all. I hadn't played very seriously in in the days before the weekend, so I thought I would be pretty bad when I came back.

So today I had a little bit of time to squeeze some playing in so I picked up my tuba, and played, and I was awesome, and it was great. I played through a pretty tough solo as well as ever, and my high range was totally there, and I was able to do just about whatever I wanted, all this, totally cold, with no warm up, and no oiling of the usually sticky valves or any of my normal instrument prep whatsoever.

I didn't expect to play that well today, at all, there was no apparent need for me to take a break, but I played great. I was just wondering what your own experiences are with taking breaks from playing, and what works well for you, and what doesn't. Is there any value in just taking occasional random breaks from the daily routine even if none of the fatigue or burned out feelings are there? I'll be trying different approaches to taking breaks in the near future, but before that, I'd just like to hear your opinions on what works for you when it comes to taking time off.

JD


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