The Essential Strokes
The piston stroke is an essential component of Stevens technique. With this stroke, the mallets start in the up position, strike the bars, then return to the up position. The mallets are propelled completely by the wrist, and there is no prep stroke. When changing notes, the piston stroke is modified so that it starts above the first note and ends above the second note, ready to strike.
Strokes are further divided into four categories of motion. Single Independent strokes involve moving the inside or outside mallets singly, pivoting around the shaft of the unused mallet. Single Alternating strokes are used in single note patterns to be played by the same hand, alternating the inside and outside mallets. Double Vertical strokes are used in playing double notes simultaneously by the same hand. Double Lateral strokes are used for fast, rhythmically adjacent notes to be played by the same hand.
This method of striking the bars is designed for accuracy and momentum efficiency, since it attempts to eliminate all wasted motion. The piston stroke consolidates the preparation for each stroke into the recovery of the previous stroke.
Read more about this topic: Stevens Technique
Famous quotes containing the words essential and/or strokes:
“The things of this world reveal their essential absurdity when they are put in the Venetian context. In the unreal realm of the canals, as in a Swiftian Lilliput, the real world, with its contrivances, appears as a vast folly.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)
“It is the part of cowardliness, and not of virtue, to seek to squat itself in some hollow lurking hole, or to hide herself under some massive tomb, thereby to shun the strokes of fortune.”
—Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592)