Warming up might not be the most interesting topic in the world, but I find it to be an incredibly important part of practicing. When you warm up before digging into your music, you prevent the risk of injury – I also find that it warms up my brain for the day ahead.
For the longest time, I skipped my warm up because, frankly, I was impatient. I was in college and, between math class, music theory homework, rehearsals, and eating, I just felt I didn’t have the time. However, I realized that my real issue was not the lack of time, but what I was including in my warm up.
I was working on exercises that I didn’t feel like applied very much to me and the music I was playing. Of course, we all have to work on things we don’t want to do – that’s how we improve. But, I think the warm up is an excellent time to reinforce general ideas and techniques used in the music you’re working on.
So, I revised how I was warming up every day. I outline what I do in this video if you would rather watch that instead of reading.
The first thing I do is tune, which I’m sure all of you do as well. I used to rush through this, but now I treat this as part of my warm up. I make sure I’m seated in a comfortable position and, when I tune each string, I make sure I’m getting an even tone and I’m using weight in the arm. It’s a chance for me to get the bow arm going (and going correctly!).
Next, I practice a slow scale. I set the metronome to 80, put a drone on whatever key I’m working on, and start by playing whole notes. When I do the whole scale up and down, I’ll switch to half notes, then quarter notes, 8th notes, triplets, and finally 16ths. I like this because it’s a way to get my hands moving slowly and, with the drone, I can work on my ears as well. I’ll stick with one key for an entire week and then move in the circle of fifths to another key the next week.
After that, I do another technique exercise. In the video, I do a shifting drill – I like doing this one because it’s an ear training exercise and it gets my left hand really warmed up. But, I’ve also substituted thumb drills, bowing exercises, and more ear training related exercises, depending on the skill I want/need to work on at the time.
The last thing I do that I consider part of my warm up is something I learned from my teacher, Craig Butterfield at USC. I take a difficult passage from my music, slow it down to about half tempo, play it a couple times to get it clean and accurate, and then gradually work the tempo up.
I like this last part because I’m essentially turning a part of my music into a warm-up exercise. Since it’s early in my practicing, I still have a lot of energy, so I can really focus on something that is normally very difficult. Afterwards, I’m all warmed up and I’ve gotten through a bit of my music.
This whole routine usually takes between 20-25 minutes, which I feel is a good amount of time for me.
What are your opinions about this? How do you guys warm up? Anything I missed that you find important about your routine or what you tell your students?
Here’s the link again for my video on the same topic:
For the longest time, I skipped my warm up because, frankly, I was impatient. I was in college and, between math class, music theory homework, rehearsals, and eating, I just felt I didn’t have the time. However, I realized that my real issue was not the lack of time, but what I was including in my warm up.
I was working on exercises that I didn’t feel like applied very much to me and the music I was playing. Of course, we all have to work on things we don’t want to do – that’s how we improve. But, I think the warm up is an excellent time to reinforce general ideas and techniques used in the music you’re working on.
So, I revised how I was warming up every day. I outline what I do in this video if you would rather watch that instead of reading.
The first thing I do is tune, which I’m sure all of you do as well. I used to rush through this, but now I treat this as part of my warm up. I make sure I’m seated in a comfortable position and, when I tune each string, I make sure I’m getting an even tone and I’m using weight in the arm. It’s a chance for me to get the bow arm going (and going correctly!).
Next, I practice a slow scale. I set the metronome to 80, put a drone on whatever key I’m working on, and start by playing whole notes. When I do the whole scale up and down, I’ll switch to half notes, then quarter notes, 8th notes, triplets, and finally 16ths. I like this because it’s a way to get my hands moving slowly and, with the drone, I can work on my ears as well. I’ll stick with one key for an entire week and then move in the circle of fifths to another key the next week.
After that, I do another technique exercise. In the video, I do a shifting drill – I like doing this one because it’s an ear training exercise and it gets my left hand really warmed up. But, I’ve also substituted thumb drills, bowing exercises, and more ear training related exercises, depending on the skill I want/need to work on at the time.
The last thing I do that I consider part of my warm up is something I learned from my teacher, Craig Butterfield at USC. I take a difficult passage from my music, slow it down to about half tempo, play it a couple times to get it clean and accurate, and then gradually work the tempo up.
I like this last part because I’m essentially turning a part of my music into a warm-up exercise. Since it’s early in my practicing, I still have a lot of energy, so I can really focus on something that is normally very difficult. Afterwards, I’m all warmed up and I’ve gotten through a bit of my music.
This whole routine usually takes between 20-25 minutes, which I feel is a good amount of time for me.
What are your opinions about this? How do you guys warm up? Anything I missed that you find important about your routine or what you tell your students?
Here’s the link again for my video on the same topic:
