Warm-Ups!

We all hate that cacophony that preludes a rehearsal or performance the warm-up. The incoherent din that precedes a all that we do - that gobbledygook of noise is actually all NECESSARY.

This morning, I got to play along with St. Jude's again on the song, "Don't Wait 'Till the Battle Is Over". It was tons of fun. I was just playing the one song at the ned of mass. The problem is I haven't been playing piano every week, and while it hasn't made me rusty per-se, it has made it so my muscles are not always ready to go on notice.

I got a 2 minute warm-up with the choir before mass. I then sat out for the rest of mass to sit with my family. When the choir came to the final song, I came up and played. It's an energetic setting made buy the Total Experience Gospel Choir in Seattle. It was awesome and it rocked (can a song" Gospel"?).

The issue I had was that over the course of this 5+ minute song, my forearms began to hurt something fierce. I've hit this more and more recently where my arms just aren't getting the exercise they used to. When we got to the end of the song, I was just in pain. I made it, but if I had had to go on to play something else, it would have been very difficult and would have affected my playing.

So, what am I getting at?

Before you start rehearsal or mass, take a few minutes to warm up. We all like the silence and want to communicate, but we as musicians need time to warm up our muscles. This is no replacement for rehearsal during the week, but it's still important to get the blood flowing to those places where we need it before we actually need it. This is not an opportunity to launch into the most daring work of the day.

• Drums - practice a couple rudiments
• Bass & Guitar - Work on a couple scales together
• Piano / Keys - Warm up the singers
• Singers - Warm up with a few scales and vocal exercises.

Each one of these deserves an article in an of itself.