(Book) Recommendation #4
Ok…so it’s not a book, granted! However this warmup by Tommy Igoe has been something I have done every day as soon as I have picked up my sticks since the start of lockdown, so I have to include it!! It’s a really nicely structured routine, and the DVD is well worth the investment.
•
I’ve been using this warm-up for about 8 years and it is class. However, I definitely wasn’t getting as much out of it as I could have been because up until the start of lockdown I literally just played through it along with the 10-minute play along track you get with the DVD. I would stick the track and just hit the pad, whilst my mind wandered and Tommy’s voice told me what to play and when to play it.
•
Then, a few months ago, Tommy started doing live streams of himself doing the warm-up so people could play along, and whenever I could (if I got the kids to bed on time!) I would join in with the stream. Something I noticed pretty quickly was how much my hands improved from the mixing up of tempos rather than just playing to the ‘advanced’ backing track tempo of 180bpm. I also realised how I’d been limiting myself by not stretching out on areas that were weaker and could have been spending more time coming up with some of my own variations to help myself improve. I really enjoyed the ‘endurance’ warmups Tommy did during the streams where he extended the warm up to around an hour, and noticed the difference in my hands almost instantly from playing each exercise/rudiment for longer, and not just mindlessly racing through it.
•
So since about May time I have spent the first 30 mins of the day playing through this warm up (with a click rather than the backing track) at different tempos (slower as well as fast!) and developing it by adding some variations throughout in an effort to improve the weaker areas of my playing.
•
I’ll post an example of part of the warm up and some my variations. You’ll see from the video that I’ll weight this section a bit more to my LH as t this particular section was a tad sloppy when leading with the left. Drummers, definitely buy this DVD and get this routine learned, then develop variations to focus on your weaknesses more.
