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I recently finished my big summer trumpet project, which was the rough equivalent of reading through the Bible in a year--I played through the entire Arban book. The Arban book, which is a big red 350 page French trumpet method published in 1864, is such a good practice tool that it's been stolen for trombone, euphonium, and tuba as well. (French horns are too snobby to use anything they acquired secondhand.) In fact, my first exposure to the Arban book was to a bass clef euphonium copy while digging through my Grandpa Dudley's stack of parlor sheet music. I eventually bought my own copy from the local music store, brought it home, and immediately attempted to practice all of the hardest parts (i.e., Carnival of Venice and anything that looked like it went above the staff) ignorantly and with little success.

I eventually received some more nuanced direction for using the book from college teachers, but it was always as supplementary material to lots of other etude books, and it wasn't until I started doing some college-level teaching myself that I really explored some of the more obscure sections of the book. The Arban book is sort of the one thing that you can be sure a freshman will walk in with, so it became my de facto source of general practice prescriptions. Do they need low articulation work? Start on page 32 and play it down the octave. Flexibility? Page 125. Transposition? Open up to the Art of Phrasing section and bring in the first five tunes up a step, down a step, and down a half-step for next week. Multiple tonguing? Find page 155, and be sure to use your metronome.

I knew certain pages and chapters very well, but I don't think I'd ever played some of the early "introductory" materials, or very much of the "ornaments" chapter. I set myself up with a schedule to play through everything in the entire method over the course of about thirty days. First Studies, Slurring, Scales, Ornaments, "Advanced Studies," Tonguing, The Art of Phrasing (which is a collection of 150 popular tunes, largely from the operatic literature of the day), the 14 Characteristic Etudes, and the final collection of 12 Fantasies and Aires Varies. I omitted (if anyone is keeping score) the Duet section, because, well, I'm only one person. If anyone wants to come over and read 68 duets in a row in my basement, I suppose then I can technically say that I've completed the whole project.

Trumpet playing has changed quite a big since 1864. For one thing, it's trumpet playing now, instead of cornet playing. Arban's method was about setting up cornet soloists, which is why it's so heavily geared towards ornamentation, multiple tonguing, cadenzas, and vocal phrasing. A modern player has to do a lot of work at the bottom and top (and beyond) of their register to keep up with the demands of the job, not to mention a much more thorough job of minor scales, wider dynamic ranges, and "attack" studies. There are lots of other techniques to develop too, but the great thing about the Arban book is how, for the set of techniques that he chose, he so thoroughly and systematically broke down the process of learning them. If you can teach yourself triple tonguing the way that Arban sets it up, you can teach yourself flutter tonguing or anything else using his principles.

One added challenge to my project was the sheer scarcity of practice time. Not only was I pressed by the usual constraints on practice time (having to save face for evening concerts, tending two energetic boys, keeping the yard mowed and the house standing), but there was a cranky newborn in the mix as well. He was the biggest challenge, and I think that all of the whisper soft playing I did was the most beneficial practicing of the summer.

Here, therefore, is my Complete Arban Routine:

Materials needed:
Arban's Complete Conservatory Method for Trumpet
A Trumpet
A Music Stand
A Pencil
A Metronome
A Human Woman

Step 1: Get the woman pregnant. Wait nine months.
Step 2: Take the newborn down to the basement and strap him onto your chest just below your instrument bell.
Step 3. Systematically play all of the exercises in the Arban Method at the marked tempi with a metronome on but without waking up the sleeping baby.
Note: For an advanced challenge, use an extra-crotchety baby.