Manny Laureano

Gentle sight readers,

Along with the "Jeopardy"-based warm-up study I've come up with a couple more melodic warmups.

Are you old enough to remember the old island tune "Yellow Bird"? If you start on a middle G it's a beautiful flow study a la Cichowicz. Then you to F# and the Ab and so on. It includes arpeggios as well that move you to the lower register.

The other one is for the video game generation. Do you remember Ms. Pac Man? If you take the tune that opens up the game it turns out to be a nice Clarke-style technical study. If you add a rhythmic trill and a downward arpeggio at the end all the better.

The reason I mention all of these is simple. I believe that when you inject a musical quality to a warmup it serves to place a players attention away from the clinical, sterile way that so many of us approach early playing. Instead of listening to what comes out you tend to listen before you play and order a product rather than examine to see what it's doing today.

So, if you want an order, do Yellow Bird, Jeopardy, and Ms. Pac Man. the worse that'll happen is you'll enjoy yourself.

ML