Leigh Howard Stevens - Method of Movement For Marimba

Method of Movement For Marimba

During the 1970s, LHS began writing down his thoughts and exercises he invented in order to facilitate the mastery of this new technique. The result was his pedagogical treatise Method of Movement for Marimba, first published in 1979 by his own company, Marimba Productions. Now in its 6th edition, Method of Movement for Marimba is widely considered a revolutionary and highly detailed textbook which describes Stevens' method for holding marimba mallets, efficient utilization of motion, and includes over 500 musical exercises for the student. Method of Movement (often shortened to MOM) was the first textbook to fully describe a complete method for holding and playing with 4 mallets. LHS came up with the technique after learning several other grips and considers his technique an outgrowth of the Musser grip. The Stevens technique is defined by a vertical hand position (in contrast to the previous flat-palmed Musser player), pivoting around either unused mallet (instead of lifting the unused mallet out of the way), and moving the end of the inside mallet through the palm for larger intervals.