Brass players athletes

Bengt Belfrage, First horn at the Königlichen Hofkapelle Stockholm, Horn faculty at the Stockholm Music High School, First horn at the Berliner Philharmoniker (1962–1964) and member of the Berliner Philharmonisches Oktett.

This article is intended primarily for my horn pupils at the music academy of Stockholm but may also be of interest for other horn players and brass players in general. The practical knowledge I have acquired in the last ten years, as an active sportsman, has convinced me that extensive comparisons can be made between a brass player and an athlete. Both brass players as well as athletes are dependent on a good state of physical health.

The source of my investigation as well as certain quotations come from "Advice and directions for sport for young people" by sport superintendent Lennart Jönsson and "The psychology of high performance" by Willi Railo, lecturer at the sports academy in Oslo.

Can we brass players profit from the experiences gained in sport and gymnastics for the planning of our exercises, our training, warming up, for the prevention of damage, for the interplay of exertion and relaxation, over-compensation as well as isometric training? Or in other words: can we afford to leave the experiences and scientific knowledge produced by sport unexploited?

Exercise (Training)

Training for a brass player can be compared, in my opinion, with the training involved in every branch of sport. Just imagine the physical exertion required to produce a high C fortissimo and the strain, for example, on the stomach muscles whose combined mass I would like to compare with that of the runner’s or jumper’s leg or the thrower’s arm, and in addition the extremely high demands made on the lungs and heart.

Practice should be built up in such a way that the strain on the various organs is increased little by little, but should not be adapted to the small practice room which is usually at our disposal; right from the start the conditions to be found in the concert hall should be reckoned with, which is after all the milieu of the profession aspired to, which entails much higher physical stress.

Hard practice means that a good many muscles in the body are subjected to high stresses, and the higher the strain is, the more relaxation is required by the body (practice pause). If the interplay of practice and rest is held in correct balance, then this must lead to what is called in the field of sport "over-compensation", and this means that one is at a higher level of performance after the rest period. The increase of stress — intensity/quantity — is necessary if an increase in performance capability is aimed for.