It’s another week in our back to school month! As I wrote last week, I’m going to be sharing ideas about researching a new piece of music, preparing music to practice, planning and managing practice sessions, using feedback effectively, and more: all sections of my forthcoming book and online class

Last week we went big, talking about using charts to organize practice. This week I want to go specific and share some marimba exercises that might be helpful.

If you’ve been reading, you’ll know that I don’t think we mean “warm up” when we say “warm up,” so these are really technical development exercises more than muscle relaxers.

I intended for these exercises to fill in the gaps between most standard keyboard, timpani, and snare drum technical exercises. As such, they’re not comprehensive. In fact, what is?

Usage

• Use 4 mallets
• Pick and choose which might be helpful. It’s better to try one in a day than ten.
• Be creative with the exercises: try different intervals, tonalities, rhythms, dynamics, inflection, etc.
• Tailor them to fit your repertoire
• Work on your developing your sound. More specifically, work on making your sound more malleable.
• For marimba, I recommend warming up with something from each of the 5 major stroke types:
  • Single Independent
  • Single Alternating
  • Double Vertical
  • Double Lateral
  • “moving without the ball:” playing while changing intervals
• Combine these with muscular and technical development exercises on other instruments. If you are practicing snare drum, dedicating marimba practice time to the same wrist movements (double verticals) is not helpful.

Enjoy!

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