The Conscious Warm-up

Here are some excerpts from the chapter, The Conscious Warmup, from Igniting Response (to our Conducting), Publication: 2019

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"The beginning is the most important part of the work"
Plato, The Republic

Conscious Warm-ups inspire active involvement: listening, assessing, watching, and more - all the things you want your students to do during the rehearsal.

Warm-ups that focus attention make every minute count - they're one of the most important things music teachers can do to create enough rehearsal time.

The purpose of the warmup is to focus attention and create involvement
The warmup is the most important part of the rehearsal – neither something to be hurried through to get to the “real music,” nor an activity the ensemble can do on its own to give the teacher more time for deskwork.

We usually associate warm ups with athletics – to warmup the muscles – but there’s another kind.

They’re the focusing warmup activities that get the athletes to the right state for action: the pitcher adjusts his/her hat, the batter rubs some dirt onto the bat, the basketball foul shooter and tennis server bounce the ball exactly 13 times.
In fact, warm-ups are a focusing of attention…a process of bringing of each player’s to “state.”
There’s surely a certain amount of physical warmup for musicians (we all know how much better we sound when we’re “warmed up).
But the mental part is, by far - and especially in the ensemble context - more important.

Replace "Automatic" and "Get it Over With…" warm-ups with ones that engage and create active participation
Routine warm-ups - especially “play along with the recordings” – numb students’ minds and dull their attention and spirit. Those kind of warm-ups send these messages:

Let's get the warmup over with so we can get to the "real stuff.
Scales and arpeggios aren't so important (but be sure to practice them at home!
Since I don't listen carefully and pay close attention to the Warmup, you don't have to either.

Warmups that lose attention can waste 1/3 of your rehearsal.
Here's the math for a 45” rehearsal:

It's vital that the warm-up bring the ensemble to a high level of of attention and active involvement. That way, we can begin rehearsing our concert music with the students in a state to learn and excel!

The red line indicates students' state as they fully participate in the First 10 Minutes and sing/play warm-ups that create attention and active involvement. They're ready to begin the Woodshedding rehearsal stage in the heightened state that makes for learning that lasts and is fun.

The blue line indicates students' state when the rehearsal does not start the moment they come in the room, and the warm-ups are routine and not engaging. Those students come to the Woodshedding stage at low energy and attention levels: not what we want.

When we lead warm ups that involve students and focus their attention, we send these messages to our students:

The warm-up is vitally important – as important as working on the pieces we’re preparing for the concert.
Focused attention, watching, and personal involvement during the Warmup: that's our ensemble culture!

CONSCIOUS WARM-UPS
Here are some warmups that accomplish a number of things at the same time - especially creating and attention and involvement. All elements interact with and support each other; given our limited rehearsal time, it’s so important to be able to rehearse and reinforce several things at the same time.

Conscious Warm-up #1
Teach Watching
Warm-ups are the best time to develop students’ ability to watch; here a "watching warm-up" that creates immediate rapport, humour, and attention, and is sure to liven the energy.

Begin your warm-up with a scale - perhaps three beats to each scale degree - but make each note different.

Speed up and slow down your tempo from one note to another, change the kind of dynamic, attack, and release on each note. Your students’ attention level and focus will sharpen dramatically when they don’t know what's coming next.
Give a gentle prep beat, then a gigantic fortissimo on your downbeat!!! What? They didn’ t do it? They weren’t’ t watching? Guess we better do it again.
Windup to deliver that same fortissimo- but …this time … Only it’ s ppp! Surprise! Did they do it? Were they watching?
Make each note a surprise - give a lonnnnng upbeat, then a sudden staccato.
You'll soon have them watching, involved, energized, laughing at themselves, and engaged-all while warming up with a scale. You can then make the most of your rehearsal time.

It will take a while for the students to catch on. Let them be puzzled and confused – don’t tell them what you’re up to (after all, we want our gestures to “do the talking”).

They’ll eventually catch on and - at all levels - they’ll be delighted when you wind up for an explosive downbeat, then don’t give it – you’ve kept the baton above your head!
Some will sing or play - while they’re looking right at you! They’ll laugh at themselves (joined by their classmates).
Let your face – as well as the rest of your body – express each dynamic.

This makes for a good time – especially when you laugh along with the persons/people who came in…rather than chastising them! This is a great rapport builder, fear reliever, and the point about watching will be made without your having to say a word.

Make sure your body and face send the same message as your gesture! Your smile will reward them when they really get it, and they'll experience-many for the first time, the thrill of playing together. At all levels: they absolutely love this!

The students will love this “game” (make sure that you do it with drama, delight and lots of facial expressions).
They’ll feel (often for the first time) the thrill of playing together and being with the conductor. And so will you. This is no small pleasure.

Click here for more on teaching the skill of watching.

Conscious Warm-up #2
Teach Gestures – the “language you’re speaking”
During the warm-up, demonstrate and explain your beat pattern and teach the pattern to your students; that way, you'll all be speaking the same language.

This is guaranteed to engage your students right away!
Show them what your left hand gestures mean - crescendo, decrescendo, accent, sfz, etc.
Then, teach your student how to conduct both right hand beat patterns, as well as left hand expressive gesture.
By doing this, you'll be teaching them the language that is spoken in ensemble (as well as showing them there's a lot more to conducting than waving your arms around)!

Conscious Warm-up #3
Teach Marking and Watching and Gestures at the same time: combine them in a “dictation”
Combine this exercise for a warmup that warms up the mind, creates immediate attention and involvement, and produces tangible learning that carries over into the rehearsal in priority areas that are almost never rehearsed:

1. Give instructions

Give students a sheet of music – 8 measures of whole notes for starters; make sure you’ve written the expressive markings in your music.
Tell them you’re going to indicate various musical effects and you want them to mark them into their music.Make sure that you’ve gone over how to mark their music.
Click here for more on teaching how to mark the music

2. Give the dictation

If you’ve written it in 4/4, beat 4 with your right hand, and indicate crescendo, decrescendo, accent, sfz, etc. with your left, each gesture slow, deliberate and very, very clear.
Watch your hand intently - it will help them focus.
Give them time to mark what they’ve seen in the music.
Go one note by one note, asking if they need to see it again.
Finally, go through what you’ve done – 4 measures in a row, then all 8.

3. Assessment time

Have them compare what they’ve written with a partner, then ask what they have for measure 1, then measure 2, etc.
Then share with them what you intended.
If there’s confusion, perhaps it was you who wasn’t clear!

4. Have the students do it

Then, have the students conduct the dictation: first with one hand...then with both.
This creates riveted attention immediately: just what we want.
Make sure to ask students to create and lead dictations from time to time.

Conscious Warm-up #4
Create warm-ups based on the music you’re rehearsing
Accomplish many things at the same time with warm-ups that address technical issues in the piece you’re rehearsing.

If, for example, you’re rehearsing the Shaker melody, Simple Gifts:

…and your ensemble consistently misses the third B-G-B in the first measure, create a warmup that works on thirds. This will get their attention because it gives a taste of the music they’re looking forward to working on, while drilling thirds into their muscle memory.

then perhaps:

If the crescendo and decrescendo failed to thrill at the last rehearsal, you might create an exercise like this outline of the melody. Fewer notes = fewer things for the students to think about so they can concentrate on the dynamics:

After they play this through, ask:

How was it – could it be better?
Raise your hands – who could do better (almost all will raise their hands)
In what way – specifically could it be better?
OK, let’s do it and let’s do it better
Repeat until you’re getting exactly what you want
Then: ask how many times it took to get it to a high level
What did you do the last time so that it was so good (answer should be something about talking to themselves differently)
Can we do a different warmup, but this time, you talk to yourself in a way that gets you to do it great the very first time…is this possible.
OK – here we go!

And then:

The next step is to ask your students identify, adapt – and lead - passages from the music you're rehearsing...as warm-ups.

Conscious Warm-up #5
Use “dynamic scales” to make better dynamics
Something else that we expect - but rarely rehearse (like watching and marking) – is dynamics. We pros do it rather automatically, but for many students, singing and playing dynamics almost seems like “extra credit” work.

Pick a chord, and ask that it be sung/played mf.
Then, on the same chord, ask for it ff. Then pp. Insist that it be a thundering forte and a whispering pianissimo.

It can take 5-6 times for this to happen.

Be persistent and accept nothing less than exactly what you want. Ask, with a smile, if they can play softer on that pp.
When they do, ask if they can play half as loud. Then ask if they can play the sound of grass growing (or your favorite softest sound). If you persist with humor and showing confidence in them, you may hear something you've never heard before from them.
Once you’ve established the extremes – pp and ff: ask for p, then mp, then pp; let them hear and feel (ask where in their bodies they feel each dynamic; ask them to write this down and keep a record.)
Continue to ask questions – “How was it” Was the p I asked for softer than the mp you just played/sang? No? Let’s try it again,” etc.

Conscious Warm-up #6
Get more out of your current warm-ups
If you warm up with exercises or chorales, instead of playing them through, then going on to the next one, give detailed instructions:

Today we’re going to play super staccato going up, and legato coming down.
Today, we’ll decrescendo going up and crescendo coming down (!)
If the warm-up is a melody, chorale or something other than a scale, tell them to watch closely and follow you since you’re going to indicate dynamics, tempo changes, and articulations not in the music.

Over time, using these warm-ups will absolutely double the value of your rehearsals time, both at your next rehearsal and at following ones – because these warm-ups increased attention and will make learning carry over.

To help make Igniting Response (to our conducting) as helpful as possible, please leave a comment: Was this helpful? Could something have been clearer? Do you have a suggestion? Did you try it in your ensemble and did it help? Thank you! David

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We won't sell, give, barter, gift, re-gift or lend your information to anyone.
That's a promise!!