29th July 2024

Don't Hit The Floor - Hit The Books

Out of all the things that I heard at the 2003 Australian Percussion Gathering, one moment in particular stuck with me. Mark Ford was doing an intro to four-mallet playing, and mentioned his “hit the floor” approach that he uses with beginners. There was no reason for this lecture to embed in my memory; by this time I had been playing percussion for twelve years, and four mallets for ten. And yet it did.

The basic premise is that there’s a lot going on when a student first starts using four mallets. By playing on the floor, rather than a marimba, they eliminate the note (and therefore, the wrong note) variable, allowing them to concentrate on technique.

As a basic premise, it works well. However, there are a couple of reasons that I have an alternate preference. Rather than hitting the floor, I hit the books.

The first reason is that floors are dirty. University floors are no exception (in fact, they can be disgusting). By playing on the floor, all of that “dirt” gets into your mallets, and then onto any instrument that you play with those mallets. Would you rub your marimba bar on a dirty floor? I wouldn’t.

My second issue as with the physical layout. The floor simply isn’t always the right height. My arms happen to be too short for this setup to work, and I end up playing about 10cm “above” the ground. If you're not sure how to calculate the correct playing height, Leigh Howard Stevens covers it succinctly in the “Amplifications” section of Method of Movement.

So, what’s the alternative? Like Stevens, I employ books. His infinitely adjustable solution to fixed-height marimbas was to put them on telephone directories. Luckily, fixed-height marimbas (like telephone directories) are largely toast. My solution is to put books on a table, stacking them until the correct height is achieved. I still use this system to practice six-mallet technique, as I prefer to avoid specific pitches when working on abstract technical issues.

I'm all for pitches being removed from certain technical exercises. However, performing at the correct height should be included from the very beginning of four-mallet study. You can read a version of Ford’s approach here.

For previous months, click here.