Make Your Warm Up Your Secret Weapon

By Anne Sullivan 

Should you warm up before you practice? How should you warm up? How long should you warm up? Is it really worthwhile or is it a waste of time?

When you’re busy, it’s tempting to skip a warm up. You have limited practice time and a music stand full of music to practice. And you can’t forget your homework, your sports practice and everything else. So why should you take the time to warm up? Wouldn’t it be better just to get to the important part of your practice?

Professional harpists understand the value of warming up. Each harpist has his or her own favorite way to warm up, but it’s an important component of their harp playing habit, and part of the secret to their success.

I’m a firm believer in warming up at the beginning of your practice no matter what. Even when you are pressed for time,  a short warm up can make your practice more efficient and can help you use your time wisely. With only five minutes or less of warm up time, you can accomplish three important practice objectives. 

• A technique check up.

This is an obvious one, but my recommendations may surprise you. All you need to do for your warm up is a couple of scales, arpeggios and chords or a simple exercise. Play it very slowly at a medium dynamic, paying close attention to all the critical aspects of your technique. Your objective is to check your posture and position and to remind your fingers of the optimal way to play. The key to this is to play slowly, carefully and with attention to detail.

• Spot practice.

You could use your warm up time to do slow, careful repetitions of one or two of those tricky spots in one of your pieces. The concentrated work that is required to secure the notes and fingerings in passages like these is perfect for your warm up time. Warm up on that tricky passage by playing it through slowly and accurately 5 - 10 times, depending on how much time you have and how long the passage is. Use this time to focus on the musical details and your technical precision.

• Focus time.

This is my favorite reason to warm up every day. My warm up time creates a transition, a way to clear my head of the other important matters of the day and bring my attention to my harp playing. No matter what else might be on my mind, a brief warm up allows me to do a mental reset and helps me get ready to focus on my practice. Just a minute or two of concentration on my technique or on a difficult passage, or even reviewing a favorite piece creates a buffer between the rest of my day and my practice. It allows me to start my practice feeling relaxed, focused and calm. 

You may have noticed a common element in each of these warm up suggestions; they all involve slow, careful playing.  Your warm up should not be fast or frantic. You are gently preparing your fingers and your focus for the more challenging work of your practice. This isn’t the time for speed and flash. Let your warm up be that moment of calm before the storm of your practice. It may soon become an indispensable part of your practice habit and your secret weapon to harp practice success.