My goals for the day are to work through all of Rip Tide, and to get four-mallets in hands for at least 30-minutes.
Rip Tide
Warmup – scale exercises, exercise for piece at 140bpm
Beginning to end, in sections – all hands (including cymbals), slowly, no metronome, several repetitions throughout
Mm. 153-180 – hands separate (including cymbals and marimba) at 108bpm, 118bpm (could definitely be faster); hands together at 108bpm, 118bpm (can’t push much from here)
Mm. 119-152 – hands separate at 118bpm; hands together at 110bpm
Mm. 43-118 – hands separate at 122bpm; hands together and seat 113bpm.
Working with hands separate (including cymbals) at this point was really very helfpul…it forced my brain to reorganize my memories of the piece in different ways. I definitely had a more difficult time remembering notes with hands separate; my muscle and aural memory has become so engrained in my hands and my ear that my brain had ceased to be actively engaged in remembering/thinking/recalling the notes. THIS is why it is important to shift your approach once in a while, but particularly when you are working on a piece over a long period of time.
Four-mallets
Warmup/technique – DV, SI, SA exercises in octaves, ii/V/Is, thirds, major chords
Improvised 5s – with metronome at 68bpm
Worked on 5s in Surface Drifts, and played thru to end
Sightread Bach Sonata/Partita 4-mallet
