Warm ups

[kay-lister]

How long do you practice your “Warm ups”? I have been working one mine about 1/2 hr to 45 minutes. It seems that it takes me that long to warm up to do warm ups. I always make sure that my technique is what it is supposed to be and that I have increased speed somewhat before I feel comfortable with my exercises/warm ups before I move on to my pieces. Just wondering how long everyone else worked on their exercises.

Kay

[Anonymous]

I warm up for about 15 minutes or so. Only because I have limited time when I get home from work, if I want to play music, my teacher assigns me to work on. It seems to be fine for me. Course these songs I am playing are from 1 to 3 pages long. So maybe one requires more time for warm ups when you work on larger pieces? Or to each his own 🙂

[Angela Biggs]

If I “warm up”, I do it by reviewing a previously memorized piece (1.5-3 minutes long). I try to practice cold as often as possible, because most of my public playing is done 40 minutes into a Mass, which means 50-60 minutes after I last touched my instrument.

If I’m going to work on exercises, I tend to do it in the middle of a practice session. At that point I’m alert, focused, my hands are settled in, and I learn fastest; since I’ll never need to play exercises in public, that means I never have to practice playing them cold. 🙂

[kay-lister]

Interesting . . . I look at the warm ups/exercises much like stretching before a run – very much like conditioning. I loved my Masters class with Yolonda and her stressing the fact that she does her exercises always before she plays and that it gets her in the best condition for practice and/or performance.

Kay

[sherry-lenox]

I do my assigned Lariviere first whenever I practice. By now they’re semi-memorized and I’m thinking about and focusing on what specifics I need to concentrate on with whatever I do next. Right now the order is Lariviere-Naderman-Tournier-Grandjany, with the Gradjany I’m working on being my oldest piece in terms of practicing and Tournier being the youngest.

[bay-lee]

I normally only “warm up” for about five minutes. However, I am not very advanced in my playing, so my songs don’t need all that much warming up in the first place. Like Angela, I typically warm up by playing previously memorized pieces.

[carl-swanson]

Angela-I’m with you. Warming up is a bad habit. Launch right into the pieces you’re working on, even if you have to start by playing them slower than you normally can. In the real world of performing, there is almost no chance to warm up before having to perform. You might have to sit on stage for 45 minutes before playing the 2nd movement of the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique, or wait in the wings for a half hour before walking on stage and playing an audition. Get used to playing with no warm up!

[Briggsie B. Peawiggle]

For me, warming up is necessary because I am primarily a keyboard musician. I need to sit at the harp and put my hands in the proper position for harp playing before I launch into a piece. I need to subtly remind my hands that this is a harp and not a keyboard. I like to go through some large chords and arpeggios just to make sure my hands are doing the right thing before I start actually playing a piece. I also warm up on the keyboard, but in a different way……just to get things moving and my mind centered, and I wouldn’t think of singing without a warmup first…..it’s just me though.

[Tacye]

Those of you who think warming up is a bad habit must play and perform in places which are considerably warmer than I often have to contend with, or have better circulation than I do. Sometimes my warm up consists of putting my hands in warm water before walking on stage or holding a handwarmer until my entry comes along, but being physically warm is better for the body, better for my playing and less painful on the fingertips.

[Abigail Kent]

Depending on amount of time available to practice, I usually warm-up for about 30 minutes before launching into my solo pieces. There have been times when I have had to practice performing and beginning a piece without any warm-up because there would be no time for ample warm-up at the performance venue. However, I regularly do warm-ups because it keeps my hand in a correct and relaxed position as well as makes my hands warm so I don’t injure my hands or play with bad technique, similar to a dancer or an athlete.

[Sherri Matthew]

I don’t actually warm up my hands… just my ears. Since I’m not a live performer and do all my work in my own studio, I usually listen to other artists whose work I admire for about 15 minutes prior to starting. I’ve found I need to have my ears pretty intently focused if I want to minimize the number of retakes. Also on wire-strung harp, since I play with my nails on closely spaced strings, my movements tend to be very light and relaxed, with minimal motion, just barely striking the strings sometimes to get them to sound. I do have to watch out for ear fatigue though, when editing my layered organ recordings… take a break or come back the next day if need be.

[Sylvia]

I do Salzedo Conditioning Exercises (1st 6, both hands at once), plus some others made up of things I’ve found hard to do…total time around 10 minutes. If I’m playing opera or something later in the day, I’ve always done my conditioning exercises and run through the part…usually playing with the recording…so that is at tempo, but only after I’ve done my exercises. (I record off the sections I play in so I can go directly from one section to the next.) It may be quite a while before I play, as in load harp, drive there, unload, get into venue, tune, wait for start of rehearsal or performance, wait for entrance, etc….but I feel ready. I would never just go out and play without doing my exercises and some run-thru at home first. For a wedding, I do my exercises and whatever pieces I want to review before I go. A LRO (living room only) harpist may have different goals, so their warming up might be totally different. Everyone’s situation is unique, so whatever they’re comfortable with is right for them.

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