Low Arc

This is my current keyword list. It's a 3x5 card that I have taped to the wall across from where I practice. In this post, I'd like to address the first keyword: low arc.

Any one mallet-head, moving between any two keys, makes an "arc" through space. And the height of that arc is important.

In the image above (and you can click on it to see a larger version), I have moved my left hand "down" (1) a sixth; that is, first I struck A2 and then I struck C1. (Play example.) The arc of my mallet-head could have followed the red, yellow, or green lines (or some other path through space.) As any of my friends will tell you (since I all too frequently whine to them about it), my left hand has been a thorn in my side for years. Well, lately I've been letting my focus drift more frequently to my LH's arc. And I've been noticing that by simply paying the arc some attention, other aspects of my LH's deficiencies are beginning to fall into place (cf. Feldenkrais; awareness.)

Sory Diabate has superlative technique. Just look at how low he keeps his LH. The height of the arc, of course, relates inextricably to the height of the . . . whatever that's called: the lift, the recoil, the upstroke, and I've heard of snare drum teachers having students play under tables, so that they are forced to control their upstroke—and in so doing, they learn to generate power in their attack, without needing to lift their sticks up above their heads. I described this to Sory once and he thought it was a great idea; we even implemented it for a while. In fact, come to think of it, I've found that in high-tempo music, for movements of a sixth or greater, trying to follow a yellow or a red arc can be downright impossible. If one of the goals in instrument technique generally, is economy of motion, obviously the green arc is the way to go. Anyway, all I'm saying is, insofar as technique is concerned, lately I've been aiming for a low arc. It's something I'm paying attention to, and that attention is doing some good.


1. In the conception of some—though not all—bala- (and other West African xylophone-) players, A2-C1 would actually be an "upward" movement since for those players, the terms "low" and "high," and "up" and "down" refer not to pitch, but to the physical characteristics of the instrument. On that conception, the lower-pitched notes are called "high" notes because they are physically higher up on the trapezoidal keyboard. Here, I am referring to a movement from the higher-pitched A2 to the lower-pitched C1, so for me, that's a "downward" movement.

From the World of Bodybuilding

Two inspirational/thought-provoking quotations from the world of bodybuilding:

1. "Everybody wanna be a bodybuilder . . . but don't nobody wanna lift no heavy-ass weight." - Ronnie Coleman

This quote came to me through fellow bala student, Reggie Ross, who I met in New York. I think its message is obvious, and I agree with it, but juxtaposed with the next quote, it confounds me a bit.

2. "You're not just here lifting weights up and down." - A father to his son at the gym in my brother's apartment building

I might be forgetting or misrepresenting the source and the original wording, but this was the idea--and it's something Bruce spoke with me about years ago: If you practice just to fill your daily quota, and don't pay attention to what you're doing, you may end up doing more harm than good.

I guess the lesson to be learned from the two quotes taken together then is: work hard, practice often, but be thoughtful about what you do.

Another (Partial) List

Approaches to Practicing/
Things to Think About While Practicing/
Phases of a Practice Session

a. memorization (step by step, slow); incl. play through the things you know to refresh familiarity
b. form (slow to fast); concentrate on Feldenkrais stuff, the "feel"
c. reactivity (different speeds);
d. flow/groove (different speeds);
e. concentration/focus

One of the points here is that, whereas yesterday I was feeling burdened by the reduction of my practicing to little more than memorization, today, I'm recognizing the importance of memorization in the total package of what makes an effective practice approach--whether the individual components of such a package are parsed out and dealt with individually (30 minutes of memorization, followed by 45 minutes of work on form, etc.) or whether as part of a kind of Gestalt approach.

A Blog?

I wonder if blogging really the best way to go about this . . . I think that some kind of "interactive, public document of my developing thoughts on skills acquisition, pedagogy, and practice" is a very good idea. (I might think it were a great idea if I had some readers and some people with whom to interact.) But the format of a blog (with its largely--if not entirely--chronological interface) just doesn't facilitate the kind of manipulation of data that I think would be most effective for stimulating discussion and innovative, problem-solving ideas.

As an example: from the last post until now (and I still have 30 min. left in the session for today), I've realized that one thing I want to do is develop a few lists from which, say, some keywords could be derived (cf. olympic skiers) so that I can get to where I am now in the session* faster, and so that I can generally waste less practice time. *(You see . . . despite what I wrote in the last post, I now feel very "warmed-up." I've stopped [or maybe, relaxed] concentrating so much on memorizing vocabulary and instead, am paying closer attention to form and generally just moving across the keyboard more slowly. As a result, I feel that the last hour and a half was more productive than the first two hours.) Two lists in particular I'd like to see (and have accessible, not chronologically, but in some other, more spatially interactive way) are:

1. Xylophone Skills

a. imagining a melody and choosing the keys that correspond (relative to position)
b. parallel octave jumping in singles, doubles, triples, etc.
c. rolls
d. 4s and 5s
e. left/right independence
f. on the fly cross rhythm and polymeter creation
g. recalling & reproducing memorized patterns

2. Keywords for Form (cf. Feldenkrais Awareness)

a. relaxed. no tension.
b. wrists straight. wrist snap.
c. thumb position. thumb snap.
d. middle finger second digit, pinch to thumb.
e. shape of bend of support fingers.
f. elbows.

These lists are obviously incomplete, and I'd like to continue to add to them, refine them, but again, because the format of the blog is chronological, what am I going to do, hunt through all the previous posts to find each time I mention new thought/idea "x" so that I can add it to category/configuation "y"?

I think some parts of the blog format are really good. (It IS useful to be able to access this information chronologically if that's what's called for in a given situation, and I like the idea of adding a video component, for example, but there need to be other options as well, as in the case of the specific situation I just described.) Or as in this other example:

I came up with the idea about a half an hour ago to follow a pattern of waking up early and beating the crowds to the practice rooms so that I can use the mirrors in the big room (and so, get visual feedback on some of the form keywords I just listed.) Well, good. Now I've blogged that idea. There it is. The idea is written down. Which is good because I'm so busy, I may not have a chance to implement that (or some other) idea for a few days. But how likely is it that I'll remember in a few days that I even had that idea? And what if a few days becomes a few months? Unless the blog allows me (and others) to access (and reorganize) such ideas in a convenient way, what's the point of writing them down at all?