Warming Up Before Playing

It’s hard to overestimate the importance of warming up before a performance, whether you’re playing for some friends at a party, or playing at Madison Square Garden! When I play gigs with my jazz-fusion group (Mark Harrison Quintet) here in Los Angeles, I always fit in between 1–2 hours of warm-ups before I head out to the gig. Apart from anything else, I’m lucky enough to have some top pros in my band, and so I need to be at the “top of my game” to keep up with my guys!

Here are some ideas for what to play during warm-ups:

• Scale exercises – For example, play some major scales ascending and descending, for at least two octaves (more about major scales and fingerings in Chapter 7).
• Arpeggio exercises – An arpeggio is the notes of a chord, played one-at-a-time, or “broken chord” style (much more about chords and arpeggios later on).
• Hanon exercises – These are excellent exercises for technique in general, and very good for warm-ups. Most music stores sell these (the full title is Hanon–The Virtuoso Pianist In 60 Exercises). These exercises very ingeniously build up finger independence, and strengthen the so-called “weak fingers” (the ring and pinkie fingers in each hand).
• Pieces to perform – You can run over sections or excerpts of pieces that you are going to perform, for some extra reassurance… but this is NOT the time to obsess over or magnify small details of what you are about to play—the time for learning or practicing the tunes has passed—you need to “go with what you have,” and focus on the performance!