The Yellow Board

Making your own warm ups

Posted by Creator on 3/16/2021, 2:53 pm

How many of you here make your own warm up/fundamental program for your program? I know there are the standards (Like the Blue Book), but I am curious who (and at what level) does everyone branch off and start doing their own thing.

Re: Making your own warm ups

Posted by Me on 3/17/2021, 7:16 pm, in reply to "Making your own warm ups"

I think there's a huge volume of things already written out, just in different publications.

It really becomes a matter of what you want your kids to be able to do and how you're going to teach/refine those skills through fundamentals.

I've taught 6-8 and 9-12 and I always wrote out my own exercises. It's just a matter of if you want to have a ton of different scans or something clean, if you like following someone else's method, etc.

Re: Making your own warm ups

Posted by Warmup Warrior on 3/17/2021, 6:31 pm, in reply to "Making your own warm ups"

I wrote my own as many directors have done. I wrote a warmup for my first MS Honor Band and modified it through the years for HS use. My kids memorized it and we used it in marching season too. If you're writing your own, I suggest all unison/octave for the most part. I would end warmup time in concert season with a choral and tuning time. You know what your needs are more than anyone so write one.
I suggest long tones in expanding intervals, lip slurs, tonguing stuff, and brief scales. My warmups were 5 minutes max without chorales. Time is of the essence. I see to many directors spend too much time on warmups. They ARE important but you must balance your time carefully.

Re: Making your own warm ups

Posted by Jeremy Lindquist on 3/18/2021, 3:28 pm, in reply to "Re: Making your own warm ups"

I absolutely agree that warm ups CAN take too long and bands get really good at their warm up but aren’t prepared on their stage music. Early in the year our warm ups are longer (10-13 minutes out of 50). By December or warm up at Coppell North is between 4-6 minutes. Kids have dedicated instrument specific warm ups they do prior to ensemble warm up. What ever you do for a warm up, INSIST ON PERFECTION on a smaller amount of material rather than average to good performance on a large body of warm up materials.

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