Blue Devils 2024 Alternating Strokes 1 

i also think it's valid and functional to use the term to refer to strokes in which the mallet returns to a flat plane, and so long as definitions are made clear on day 1 it's really not an issue from myopic view of how your ensemble is going to play... but then when those students enter the world of percussion at large, there may be a slight language rift. another example: our activity's propensity to call double verticals "Block chords". Sometimes I get in front of a new group of students and even advanced students have no idea what I mean when I say "double vertical" because they were taught that it's called "blocks". i also feel like the definition of a piston stroke can be wildly different from group to group--my percussion professor would use to term to mean any stroke that comes back up to the same height it started, regardless of the speed of the rebound, while many in our activity use it to refer to a stroke that is very fast with a pause at the top. anyways, my point it... language can be super confusing and there really is NO standard. overall it's NBD and I overthink this shit to no end, but yea.

love the channel btw

i make the destination as the following: a single independent stroke finishes before the next stroke begins. a single alternating stroke initiates while another stroke is i’m motion. if you play 2 single alternating then it’s a lateral, if you play 3 it’s a triple lateral. it is important to make these distinction as they are so common to the literature. similar to how we make special consideration to octave grip.

@@nic-farris i think it's a fine and useful distinction and I have used the term the same way you used it for many years, because that's what we called it at The Cavaliers. but do you see how stevens' text defines it differently and the confusion that could cause between the marching community vs. concert marimba community? for us to have a shared language yet the shared terms mean completely different things is kinda wild in my opinion. just playin' devil's advocate.

@@thomaswharton4078 yeah. i think the definition from the stevens book you’re referring to of a single independent being multiple repeated strokes on a single mallet is wrong from a taxonomic pov. because it leaves some strokes unlabeled. what is a single mallet 3 played from forte? it wouldn’t be labeled single independent or single alternating? the performer plays with the same technique for a single mallet 3 as multiple repeated mallet 3 so then a single mallet 3 must also be single independent. it then follows that if i am to play a single mallet 3 to its completion, wait a minute then play a single mallet 4 to its completion this would also be called single independent. so the question becomes how much time must elapse between? and the answer i arrive at is if the 2nd stroke begins before the first completes. i hope this makes sense. it’s def nerdy as can be but i enjoy these distinctions and find them helpful when teaching for a student for understand when i’m consciously changing technique. i also find it important that we do not rely absolutely on the words of another as ground truth but rather as interpretation, i.e. the method of movement. as technique lessons are not really learned from reading or being told but rather from personally experience playing the instrument. there are many other things in the method of movement that i think leigh got wrong, like he says with good technique you shouldn’t ever get stigmata (bro def never did a dci block of only inside two green). thank you again for your comment. debating the nuance of our activity brings so much life and joy to me lol