How to Practice Elk Sounds?

[WapitiTalk1]

OK, let's say you're relatively new to using diaphragms/reeds and are trying to improve your calling. Maybe you can make some seriously loud sounds and somewhat have control over the pitch, but what is the best way to practice? Cow/calf sounds first with a focus on air flow control, and, dropping the jaw/tongue to get the lower, raspy cow sounds? Practice just locator bugles next till one can get a few notes, up and down the scale, and concentrate on holding the high note? How do you work on making good sounding chuckles/grunts that may assist a hunter in elk battle this fall and in the coming years as the situation demands?  What do you seasoned callers say; how should a person be practicing if relatively new at this game, or, just wants to improve on the sounds one can already make?  Is tempo important? What is a good practice regiment for a guy that wants to get better if not really good?

I am certainly no calling expert but I hear this question all the time.  What do you cats say concerning the six pack of questions posed in the text above?   

[STIKNSTRINGBOW]

Would not consider myself an expert, but I have called in a few elk over the years...
I first put one of those calls in my mouth at Glen Berry's booth at the sportsmans show in the Kingdome back in 1986, or '87.
Started out just trying to make a sound.
And then worked on imitating the sounds on my Larry Jones cassette tapes.
Then, (yes, I was "THAT GUY") I went out in the woods and practiced on real elk.
By the time season came around, I was extremely confident.
Had a great season, called in several bulls, even managed to harvest a 5pt and was hooked.
I don't practice as much now, especially not in the woods before season.
But one similarity between my early days, and next year, is that I will start out practicing my cow/calf sounds, then gradually warm up to full blown bugles.
I think about the sounds as I make them, and visualize what the animal looks like, and think about emotion.
I believe you can be the worst sounding caller out there, but if you get the emotion or "cadence" correct, it is more effective than the purest sounding bugles.
Even a shy bull will come to a lone cow, or cow/calf.
Pre-rut, rut, even post rut.
Bugles are great tools for locating and calling, but the most common thing I hear every year from other hunters is "they (elk) are not talking" and quite often I have been talking to them (elk) just fine.
Difference is that the other hunters are walking miles behind gates on logging roads and bugling into bottoms not getting a response, and pushing on until they find a hot bull.
 I am walking creek bottoms and communicating to an imaginary herd, and often the herd becomes real.
Both the elk and I hear, sometimes even see these hunters as they go on past, often the elk even answers, but the hunters do not hear them.
Every elk communicates, and most elk are cows, so I make mostly cow sounds.
The difference is that elk have huge ears that can hear a mouse fart at 100 yards, they really only get loud on occasion, and with a purpose.
But if I stir up a little excited cow talk, I cannot help but bugle if the mood strikes.
Bugles are fun, but kind of like cheering at a sporting event, you want to do it at the right time, or every elk in the woods will know you are there, and ignore you.