I’m going to be in the studio with Patti Van Tassel again today, so my practice at home is going to be rather minimal.
Surface Drifts/four-mallets
Warmup – one-note, two-note, etc. exercise, DV block to DV alternating rolls; SI exercises with mallets 2/3, 1/3, 2/4. 1/4 combinations in unison and alternating hands. All this was done while canvassing body (top to bottom) for tension – I’m noticing myself regularly locking my knees back and sucking my stomach in, and occasionally squeezing my shoulders back.
I only have a short time to work this morning, so I am choosing to work only on memory and tempo goals set yesterday.
Memory checks (mm. 1-25 and mm. 40-92) – mm. 1-25 = great note accuracy, again tempo is slow and spaces between phrases are not accurate (I played through once very slowly, then several more times at progressively faster tempos); mm. 40-92 = not as great… I had to look at the page to remember what the first chord was!! and I had to look again at mm. 66!! Otherwise, it was okay.
SHORT BREAK to do AT floor work…
5s – played through several times, listening for ways to phrase the notes; building tempo, started at 40bpm (at first, I had to break up the long phrase into smaller sections to keep with tempo). Well, today this turned out to be more about keeping a steady tempo and connecting the longer phrase, rather than actually building tempo (and realizing that I need to use harder mallets for 2/3, and noticing exactly where my eyes need to go to anticipate the upcoming moves). Anyway, I was able to get there at 40bpm, so after a few days of this I think I will actually be able to work on building the tempo. I mostly worked with the metronome on (playing all 5s), but I also played without a few times, and tried to play it at 50bpm.
