Wait, wait!!! I haven't written my reply yet.
Sometimes what I like to do is practice long tones in the context of a song.
Pick a song, preferably one with lots of long notes already in it. Play the
song and, when you get to a note that would be long anyway, play that one
note as if you were doing long tone practice. If you don't do well the
first time, give it more than one long, full breaths. Then move on in the
song, and repeat wherever it feels appropriate.
I enjoy this method of practicing for a few reasons, but the main one is
probably that it helps marry the benefits of long tone practice with actual
songs. Often in long tone practice I will get beautiful sounds, but despair
that I can't produce that during playing whole songs. This way, you at
least get a *feel* for what that song would sound like if you played
optimally throughout it. It's also just plain fun, I think.
> From: "Tots Tolentino" <tots@quickweb.com.ph>
> Date: Tue, 25 Jul 2000 15:19:47 +0800
> To: "Shakuhachi" <shakuhachi@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: long tone practice
>
>
> Hi all,
> Many thanks for all your responses. I see I have a lot to work on, but
> realize too that I'm going to have fun doing it. Thanks again.
>
> Tots Tolentino
> tots@quickweb.com.ph
> www.geocities.com/totst
>
>
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