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   Warm-up 9 Premise Review (Intent and Emotion)

New Premises for this Exercise

 

Creating Intent

  1. Every Note Has a Purpose (Intent) —The Soft Kitty Conundrum. We have discovered that there is a disconnect between scale studies, solfege, and playing or singing the notes on a written page. We need to teach students to be aware of what scale degree they are performing at all times. The scale studies we use are helpful, but they do not place the scale or any of its notes in a context other than, perhaps, whether it is major, minor, or modal. Thus, we recommend that you lead the students in playing or singing songs by scale tone (numbers or solfege). This creates a greater understanding of the notes they are playing and the purpose of those notes. Lead the students in singing Soft Kitty or some other simple tune without telling them you are doing so by simply indicating which scale tone you wish them to play. Once they understand that they are playing/singing a tune, move to playing/singing that tune by rote with “intent.” An idea to help create emotion would be to ask the ensemble to perform the tune representing a variety of emotion such as happy, sad, seething, violently angry, like, love, etc.

 

Creating Emotion

  1. Combining and unifying all the above philosophy, psychology, and pedagogy will create a foundation for being able to express the emotional intent of any work. It boils down to the notion of “value and transfer.” If the musician is intrinsically motivated to pursue creating and unifying the emotional intent of every note, then the performance has the chance to be stunning, beautiful, powerful, and even life-changing. We hope that creating emotion through your performance is not only your intent, but the value and transfer of this notion also becomes that of your students as well.

On-going Relevant Premises

 

Creating Intent (click for details page 2)

  1. Blend

 

Balance Technique (click for details)

  1. Volume as Intent

  2. Balancing Volume with Intent

  3. Volume Should Never Affect Style

  4. Comfort Zone Development

 

Tone and Tuning Technique (click for details)

  1. Tone In-Tune

  2. Most Humans…

 

Involving Your Percussion Section (click for details)

  1. Review Percussion Warm-up Tenets and Procedures

 

Articulation Technique (click for details)

  1. Start with a “T” and then dent the air.

  2. Slow Music—Quick Articulation

 

Breathing Technique (click for details)

  1. Always take a full, in-time breath.

  2. Maintain a steady stream of air.

  3. Fill every beat with sound.

  4. Never, ever, ever, breathe after a long note Unless we all decide to do so. 

 5. Percussionists must learn to breathe together.

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