When should I take a day off?
Before I share what works best for me, I would like you to consider what has worked for you and be mindful while considering my advice. Everyone is different, and the first thing I feel when taking time off is the context of the playing responsibilities I have coming up, starting with how the context of playing engagements affects my time off. I will not take a day off directly before a classical trumpet gig. I will take a day off if needed a few days before, but not right beforehand. Even one day off can affect the coordination required for a classical gig. I will and can take a day off if needed before a lead trumpet gig. However, most of the time, my schedule will not allow it. This brings me to an important point: we all need to take time off from the trumpet, but if you need to take one day off per week, you must be playing gigs six days a week. I think about time off in the frame of having earned it. If I have played for lead trumpet for 3 hours a day for six days straight, I will take a day off; if I haven't, I probably won’t.
What are the benefits of taking time off? First, your body can rest and recover. Second, your mind can focus on something else, and your subconscious can build new pathways. Third, you can emotionally recover from any stress you might have built through practice. Fourth, you will have a better ability to manifest balance in your life and focus on something other than the trumpet.
What are the downsides of taking time off? First, your physical micro-coordination starts to diminish. Second, the pathways you keep clear by practicing and engaging can become less clear. For example, skills like sightreading and transposition can become rusty in a single day, depending on a player’s abilities.
I only take up to one day off consecutively because it starts to impact my endurance. I will only do so for medical reasons and injury.
Strategic light days of playing can be essential when you are not able to take an entire day off because of gigs or because you are on vacation. Light days, for me, consist of only 1.5 hours of fundamentals, which include sight reading and transposition, improvisation on top of the usual lip slurs, double and triple tonguing, and range exercises. My goal is to give myself an active rest day where I will not lose any of the downsides mentioned above. One thing to note about light days is that your endurance will suffer if you take more than two consecutive light days.
I hope that this helps you decode the best approach for you. Taking time off and balancing practice obligations and physical limitations is an art form on the trumpet that requires conscious effort.
