Morning reading: Chapter 15 from Alcantara’s Indirect Procedures
Snare Drum
Improvisation/Warmup/Technique – rudimental style with sections including focus on flam rudiments – lots of inverted flam taps, roll rudiments, diddle rudiments, all combined, triple and duple feels, took on style of Les Parks rudimental solo (since I’ve been SR from his book so much lately)
Sightreading – Les Parks rudimental solo, Delecluse orchestral snare solo (basically, reading one a day from these snare books.. will be done with Parks book soon). I definitely noticed more tension while reading the Delecluse solo… I was clenching my jaw and more stiff in my arms and neck,,, tomorrow (and for many days ahead), I think I should focus on improvising in orchestral style and focusing on when tension arises. (Also, I need to play on snare drum, rather than drum pad…)
Short break to do Alexander Technique floor work, and focus on integrating neck, spine, legs, etc.
Four-mallets/Surface Drifts
Improvisation/Warmup/Technique – utilizing all stroke types, improvised over a 20-minute ‘C’ tanpura drone with the Indian rag/scale C, Db, E, F, G, Ab, B, with some linear/melodic improv, some chordal…trying to play ‘tonal’ harmonies within the chosen scale. About halfway thru I started singing along, vocally anticipating the notes I was playing, in an pseudo-Indian classical vocal style. I say pseudo because I am aurally familiar with the style, and though I have studied some Indian classical music theory (harmonic and rhythmic) and history with several teachers from India, I have not had any specific training in the execution of particular gamakas (ornamentations) of the styles/pieces/rags. Also, because of the limitations of the set 12-pitch scale of the Western marimba, I could not accurately translate the ornaments I was singing that went between the notes of the scale. Anyway…
MEMORY WORK Mm. 40-end – tried playing thru all from memory… no peeking first! I THINK that I was almost 100% accurate with notes and dynamics, though roll durations were a bit off because I was changing tempo in my head to accommodate the difficulty of various passages. There is one phrase (mm. 126-128) that I missed the RH rhythm, and I missed it yesterday too.
Mm. 40-end – with metronome at 1/4note = 80bpm (except 5s…these went to half time), and using sheet music for reference when necessary. Worked m. 40 a bit, and noticed measures throughout that I regularly play too slow in relation to others…
All 5s – with metronome at 50bpm, hands separate; hands together, no metronome
Played thru mm. 40-end, no metronome, from memory. Much better, more accurate tempo, dynamics and all notes were accurate. 😉
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I didn’t get to practice while on campus today as I had hoped, but still feel good about regularity of practice and progress this week.
