First Blog - The Warm Up
Hey everyone!
Welcome to the new blogging section of my site! Every month or so, I’m looking to post some new information to help you with your percussion ensemble. I’m hoping to slowly cover as many areas as possible, including music reading, grooving hard, creatively adapting my tunes for your group, making junk percussion instruments, and anything else I feel inspired to write! If you have any suggestions for particular topics, just hit the ‘Contact’ tab at the top of the screen and let me know, and then I’ll see what I can do.
Today: it’s all about getting into the groove through a good warm-up.
I’m going to introduce you to my favourite warm up. This is a every effective exercise to improve the overall groove of any percussion ensemble. However, I have also used it with concert bands and jazz bands to help all the players with their time feel and listening skills. This groove is particularly useful as a warm-up to any Latin tune, for example my tune ‘Loud and Loaded’, but it also works just as well as a stand alone exercise.
To start off, choose 1 or 2 bars of one of a tune that have a repetitive groove. Generally choose a part of the tune that you are going to rehearse that day, but anything like the example below will work nicely.
Have all the players stand up while holding their instruments, set a tempo that’s not too fast to begin with (for example, 140 bpm), and get everyone stomping their feet on beats 1 and 3. Keep this up for a minute or so, and make sure everybody is ‘locked in’ together.
Once the stomping is feeling comfortable, bring in the instruments one at a time. The first instrument in the example is the clave. This is the most important percussion instrument in Latin music. It is essential that everyone can hear and feel this first rhythm as it repeats over and over. When the groove is feeling strong (I recommend at least another minute or so), bring in the second instrument, which are the congas or bongos in my example. Make sure that everyone can hear how these two instruments lock in together, and how it fits with their foot stomping. Again, when the groove is feeling like it’s ready to move on, slowly bring in the third instrument, and then the fourth etc, until eventually everyone is playing their 2 bar pattern over and over again.
Once everybody is playing, keep the groove going for a couple of minutes.
In order to make these patterns ‘gel’ together, everyone must be aware of exactly how their rhythm fits in with everyone else’s, and everyone must be agreed on the time feel. Once your ensemble is used to the warm up, you can start at a faster tempo, but make sure you never lose the groove.
Some tips:
1. Stomp your feet with all of the students. As a conductor, you need to be a key driving force for the groove that your ensemble members are creating.
2. As each instrument comes in, clap the new rhythm with the student(s) as they play. This will make them feel secure and confident about what they are playing.
3.For a change, sometimes do the warm up without any instruments, and just have everybody clapping the rhythms instead. This can make it more difficult to groove, but it’s just another way to practice listening skills and locking in with each other.
4. But above all, have fun! When this groove is played over and over and over by your ensemble, everyone should feel like dancing!
Good luck, and see you next time!