Weekly Warm Up No. 42
Hi WWU’s,
Looking forward to seeing you all at our next session.
We will be continuing to work at different tempos for our warm up for the next few weeks.
I’ve been working on pushing building up new tempos for a few pieces I’m working on at the moment and the best way to improve velocity is to practice at faster tempos. This means that things may be, at times, out of control. This is actually OK in moderation. You have to push yourself to reach new speeds and the best way to work on that is to incorporate tempos just at the edge of your ability (think Goldilocks: too cold, too hot, and just right). Too slow is not pushing you, too fast is where you aren’t able to make things happen for the majority of the piece, and just right keeps you fully engaged (you’re playing the piece, or passage, and really having to pay attention, think ahead, and hold on for the ride!). I should also mention that this doesn’t mean an entire practice session is focused on developing this new tempo. On the contrary, I would think about taking 7-10 minutes (of a 40 minutes practice session) and to work on that goal tempo. This is a process and it takes me weeks to get a new tempo comfortable/fully integrated. Also, the timeline for this kind of work is different for everyone (because we’re all different). So, please, take the “should” out of this process:
- No:
I should be able to hit this tempo in 2 weeks. - Yes: My goal is to hit this new tempo. I’m aiming for 2 weeks from now and that may change based on what I discover during this process of increasing the speed.
If this is a new approach for you, technical practice is a great way to develop this skill through arpeggios, scales, and slurs at varying tempos. New tempos can take the familiar movements of the hands and make them new again.
For this week and next week, we’ll be working on triplet based arpeggios, single string slurs, and our sychronization drill.
Tempo:
Quarter Note set @ 90, 100, 110 BPM.
Right Hand Arpeggios:
(Based on the A Major Pattern Outlined Here)
- Pim
- Pmi
- Pma
- Pam
- Pimami
- Pimami amiami
Left Hand Slurs:
Tempo: Quarter Note 100, 110, 120 BPM.
- Ascending Single String: 121 232 343 (triplets)
- Descending Single String: 434 323 212 (triplets)
Synchronization Drills: Single String
- 1010 | 1234
- 2020 | 1234
- 3030 | 1234
- 4040 | 1234
Be sure to signup for my mailing list to join me for the Weekly Warm Up every Monday at 8:30 am (EDT).
Questions? You can reach me here:
