Snare drum
A few days ago I rearranged a mirror in my practice room at home to a space next to my snare drum. Since then I have been having fun trying to trick my brain into seeing my left hand as my right, by positioning myself so that when I play and look in the mirror I only see my left hand, but it looks like my right because of the placement. I have worked like this quite a bit over the past 10-15 years, in effort to trick my brain into visually and, ultimately, physically believing that my left hand is equally as dominant as my right. Sometimes I feel very obvious differences immediately, sometimes not… but, I do know, overall, that my hands have become much more equal – when playing anyway. I do try to do regular household activities with my left hand on occasion, with less luck; and, I definitely can not write with my left hand. 😉
Also, for the past few weeks, I have been dancing/moving around while practice snare drum and basic technique exercises on marimba (sometimes moving in tempo, other times not). I am not completely sure why I started this, but my feet remain planted, and I move my mid-section, I THINK in order to challenge myself to be mobile, flexible, yet planted in feet and solid in arms/shoulders. In any case, it is definitely helping me remain aware of my whole body while playing, rather than just my arms/upper body, AND it is fun. 😉
Anyway, with that in mind…
Warmup/technique – 8s, stick control – with varied, flexible tempo and dynamics throughout
Surface Drifts
Warmup/technique – improvised DV chords; played 93-end as slow DV block chords
93-end – alternating DV chords, as written
40-end – alternating DV chords, as written, with 82-end from memory (pretty accurate… form was there, though some notes, duration and dynamics were off)
5s – worked hands together, metronome at 8th note = 80-100bpm (focused on m. 53, mm. 56-60)
40-end – ran thru at 75bpm (except 5s, which were played in half-time)
