Ronald:

I have done lip slurs my whole life as a trumpeter, so that may explain my abilities. I’m up to 16ths @144bpm on a good day. The thing is, I have done probably THOUSANDS of hours of lip slurs, out of so many books, specifically Irons, but NEVER seemed to get anything from doing them! Complicated ones! Went all over the place zig zagging up and down left and right skipping around fast and slow low and high soft and loud repeating millions of times… until the burn set in so hard I couldn’t play another note sometimes, and the next day, the next week, nothing seemed to ever improve. My range, specifically. So, that’s why I remain skeptical of WW. Using the side support embouchure is different so we’ll see, I hope for the best. I have found that is getting easier to slur up to G and a bit higher with little effort.

I do the pedals in the WU as I saw a YT vid about this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_JHHMC33GY
from Paul Mayes who I respect as a player, he says it’s good to give the lips a ‘massage’ and loosen up. I suppose it’s possible to be too loose. Is that what you’re thinking?

When I practice I use my phone and a tablet and I read the WW exercises from the webpage. I use the tablet to take notes on the exercises in an excel spreadsheet and suggestions for what to do next time.

Regarding your comment:
“I can’t even see how you would be tired even if you put all both sessions back to back.”
I’m not sure what you mean, do you mean I shouldn’t be tired, or I should? When I stop for a break, my lips are usually at a point of duress, where I know if I proceed I will be making things worse instead of better. Sometimes I try to continue, just trying to ‘finally’ get it played right, and I know it’s not good to do that under duress. I really lack in endurance now. It’s possible I’m doing this wrong, in fact, highly suspected I do too much at a time right now. I know my ‘practice flow’ leaves something to be desired, and honestly there has been a lot on my mind besides trumpeting at the moment.

Here’s the thing, when I picked up the horn again about 3 years ago (after 5 years off) all I did was play songs I enjoyed, all the time. I just tried to play songs I’ve heard, that I liked, like I used to. I can play dozens of baroque trumpet concertos (of course, usually transposed a fifth or an octave down). So transitioning to a really structured session has been a challenge. I used to have many sets of exercises I’d play, all kinds of them, but didn’t record written results like I am now.

I didn’t get a whole lot of instruction. The best thing that helped me at the time was to play Clarke studies (#2 in particular) as many times as possible in one breath. That makes you go as fast as possible, and as quiet as possible, making you more efficient. Seemed to help at the time.

I don’t consider what you’re saying as harsh at all, it’s exactly what I would like to hear, thank you! If you go to the timestamps where I have windworks indicated you will see that I do all of the exercises in order right down the page, from singing C through lip slurs. Multiple times. Sometimes I stop and repeat them to try and fix and improve things. Maybe I do that too much. BTW, I do play some warm-ups (WU) when I return from breaks, and sometimes get carried away.

Thanks for your support, I am at the end of the moderato stage but spending probably another week here to review all the previous exercises. I think I do have the feeling of the side muscles now. It’s much more focused that I used to play, sides are firm even when I play a low C, not loose there.

I’ll be posting more vid links of anyone is interested I’ll try to make them concise to the WW exercises.

Steve