This page serves to outline a basic warmup and chop out routine based on Leigh Howard Steven's book The Method of Movement.
We follow a routine in an attempt to increase practice efficiency. There has been much liturature written on meeting goals, with a common acronym being "SMART" goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timebound.
The design of this routine is to 1. include specific exercises that address specific skills, 2. measure our development of theses skills via tempo capacity, 3. derive starting tempos via what is currently achievable to the performer, 4. select exercises that are relevant to the skills the performer's needs, 5. reduce the time required to achieve such goals, and 6. be customized to the "deadlines" in the perfomer's life, such as auditions or performances.
It is our hypothesis that "hacking", the spontanious decision of what to practice, may not always ineficient in meeting goals. Not the use of the word "may". There are times when hacking is appropriate, but we propose that it should not be the majority.
This program uses a syntax for back to back reps that is broken down as follows:
[Starting Tempo -> Final Tempo; Tempo Increment]
For example:
[100->200;i+10] would mean that the user plays the exercise at 100, 110, 120, 130... all the way up to and including 200. The player rests long enough between reps as to ensure near full recovery of chops.
It is recommended that the player continues incrementing tempo until an "80% rep" is performed. This is to say that the user is 80% successful. Of course this is up to a subjective interpretation and requires discresion on the players behalf. The intent here is to ensure that minor mistakes are permitted but major flaws are not allowed to develop into bad habits.
To me, an "80%" rep might look like a small mental error, or a bit of dragging, or a momentary loss of control, or minor breakdowns in form, or a few wrong notes etc.
It is recommended that the player starts at a tempo slow enough to 1. provide substantial repitions with high success to aid in the increase of tempo capacity and 2. develop the quality of the player at any tempo that music may require. Put simply our overall goal in routines is to get faster and to sound better.
I usually select a starting tempo that is 10ish reps away from my 80% tempo. Often half my 80% tempo, with increments of 5 or 10.
Let all of the following be hypothesis rather than fact. It is through this exporation that we arive at our pedagogy.
I propose that Technique or Form is often, but not always, a means to what the music sounds like.
Let us zoom out. As musicians our role is to create music. Music is to produce an emotional effect on the audience. Technique is the way by which we play our instrument, and thus the way by which we play music. Simply, Technique leads to Music which leads to an empotional effect on the audience. Even simpler, Technique -> Music -> Emotions.
It follow then that the closest cause to the emotions of the audience is the music. Thus we hypothesize that focusing of the manipuation of the music will give us the most direct control of the emotional effect on the audience. It follows that our decisions of technique should be derived from what the music requires. Simply, musicianship informs technique, and technique is a means toward musicanship.
Now let us point out, that this is not always the relationship. That is to say, sometimes it is Technique itself that produces an emotional effect on the audience. For example, I have found uniformity across multiple performers can produce awe. Even more directly let us bring up the example of stick tricks. There are ways to manipulate drum sticks and mallets which are not condusive to the music, but are impressive in of themselves. Examples being the Casy Claw or Ethan Octaves or High Moms. Each of these as a technique can disrupt the desired musical intent, but none the less can bolster the desired emotional effect on the audience.
So sometimes technique becomes a means to emotional effect. Let us hypothesize this effect is through the visual medium. Our job as players, performers and teachers is to make decision of what to prioritize, and these priorities have caused much debate.
Example I have found that are commonly debated?
Of course there are far more of these debates than could be resonably listed, and it is my hope that the final bullet shows how granular these questions can become.
So sometimes Technique->Music->Emotion and somtimes Technique->Emotion. Regardless, the goal is to influence the emotions of the audience.
There was a time in my career when I primarily focused on my Technique as the end goal. A time characterized by "how fast can I play green" and "how even is my broccoli plane". Then as I became a teacher, I noticed my priority shift toward the Music. A time characterized by "how many right notes did I hit?" or "how clean was the rhythm?". And now in the writing of this, I'm exploring the shift of my priorities toward Emotion?
It follows that I ask, what influences the audience's Emotion? Which is proceeded by who is the Audience?
Let that be all for now. This was supposed to be an exercise routine page. And I am out of time for the moment. I will return to organize these thoughts later.