Monday, April 19, 2010

Practice weight lifting

I've joined a gym. Yes, the over 50 year old love handles finally got to me. And you know what? It's making me think differently about my practicing. Isn't practicing a training? How can we expect to play pieces without doing the lifting and the cardio?

My gym is great. They know me by name; say hello & goodbye. I love the weights: the specific targeting of muscle groups. We had a talk about cardio's optimum fat burning minutes, and to my sadness I learned that cardio burns fat most effectively after 20 minutes! Uuugh! I get bored after 10 minutes! So, today, I started breathing: 4 in, 4 out. When I got bored I went to 5 in, 5 out. Tomorrow, I'll bring a metronome & practice my double tonguing as I push the steps on the eliptical.

This got me thinking about practice. What if I thought about exercises as targeting specific muscle groups, and the etudes and pieces as cardio? Right now, my major musical muscle groups (relating to the weights) are:
Tone (Abs)
Fingers (legs)
Tonguing (arms)
Extended techniques
Rhythm & sight reading

My subgroups are:
Tone: 1) Long tones; 2) whistle tones; 3) harmonics; 4) vibrato; 5) dynamics
Fingers: 1) Major scales; 2) minor scales; 3) chromatic scale; 4) whole tone scales; 5) octatonic scales; 6) interval work (on any/all of the scales); 7) arpeggios; 8) trills
Tonguing: 1) double tonguing; 2) triple tonguing
Extended techniques: 1) singing while playing; 2) multiphonics; 3) microtones; 4) percussive effects

If I do an hour circuit in the gym every other day, and 20 - 30 min. of cardio the alternating days, what about doing the same in my flute practice? I can make sure that I do my "weights" (exercises) and "cardio" (pieces) every other day for an hour & cardio for 20-30 min. on the alternating days.

After all, if we are playing and teaching, we need to have our best flute fitness! Good luck, let me know what you think & if you have other exercises to include. Next post, I'll list some of my circuit combinations.

2 comments:

  1. Congratulations ellen!
    I'm still dreaming of going to the gym every other day...
    but wait until I'm a full time composer again
    Ha!

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  2. Hi Ellen! I'm very impressed with both your blog (such interesting thoughts about "weightlifting" "Cardio" and music practice!) and your beautiful website. It is so musical. Congratulations on a great effort, and your blog goes into my "favorites!" Much love and admiration, Heidi

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