I’m currently working to record all of Jacques Delécluse’s music for snare drum. What a terrible idea! It’s led to some fun research into performance practice in his work, which led to… a lot of interlibrary loan books

I've even made an annotated bibliography of Delécluse's percussion music.

One technique that comes up a LOT is ROLLS.

Having decided that rolls in Delécluse’s music are important, and should be performed as dynamic, moving, inflected notes rather than flat blocks of sound, the next step is to work on my rolls.

I thought it would be helpful to share some color commentary on a practice session of mine, where I’m simultaneously working on the fundamentals of roll technique and trying to develop some musical shapes with my rolls.

No better place to start than the JD’s Methode de Caisse-Claire, so here’s an example practice session, with me, my humidifier, and my snare drums working out of the Jacques Delécluse method book.

How do I do it? Design Thinking + Deliberate Practice. Key themes?

• Improvisation, using a few exercises as a jumping-off point
• Never repeating something exactly: constant variation: always changing things… you get the drift
• Testing new ideas to failure as quickly as possible, diagnosing issues, and prototyping new solutions quickly
• Activating the ears and enhancing mental models by exploring timbre, timing and sound (snares, mute, beating spot, muscle groups, stick choice, drums…
• Enough physical repetition to develop muscles

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Conclusion

You don’t need a lot of content or time to practice this way. The mission was to develop my technique. What technique? The exact technique I will need to successfully play Delécluse’s snare drum music.

MORE MORE MORE

I. Curious about other parameters of Delécluse’s music that might be important in a performance? Mike T and I covered some broad basics on our podcast here:

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II. A tremendous time saver in the practice room is warming up with specific repertoire in mind. I wrote about some ideas to do this vis a vis Delécluse here:

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III. Cortona: It's an honor to work at the Cortona Sessions, sharing space with a wonderful group of fellows and faculty. Applications are due for chamber music ensembles, individual performers, composers, and conductors on February 1. Hope you can join us! ​

Let me know what you think, and Happy Practicing!

-Mike

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