Hi there all,

I'm looking into doing a Rack Percussion for our University this year. I realize there is very little in our music for this part, but I'm looking into writing some parts in. But I am wondering if anyone has any warm-ups for this particular part. I'm open to just about anything, but I'd like some warm-ups to work with the mallet players. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Timing is te ultimate rack warmup.

I would try some independence exercises,drum set style, since playing rack can often involve doing multiple things at once.
Add some groove and color to the front ensemble by playing different rhythms on different instruments and hands, and maybe even throw in your feet if you're going to have anything like a kick drum or hi-hat on your setup.

Ensure that you're getting a good cycle of all the different auxiliary instruments you'll be playing so that way all of your different chops for suspended cymbal, concert snare, triangle, tambourine, etc. are ready to go when the time comes in the music.

Always make sure not to overplay though! You don't want to take all of the attention away from whatever the keyboards may be playing, keep it simple yet effective.

99% of students have mediocre buzz rolls at best. With the captive audience aspect of pit warmups, you could instigate a great deal of improvement in this area, for that individual. Be sure to write the parts in a way that forces them to address the concept of freeing themselves from skeletons in favor of finding the perfect roll speed for each particular dynamic or phrasing shape. So, lots of cresc/dim, and tied vs broken. If you have trouble thinking of stuff, just rip licks off from the Goldenberg. That book is teh awesomez.
Also, I always like to put lots of juicy tambourine parts in shows. It really augments that style of music well. Thumb roll and shake roll exercises would help the student a lot. Especially if they happen to be a music major.

if you warm up with drumline and pit doing the same exercises you could learn the snare parts and work it into all the instruments but keeping it musical. like 8 on a hand, take it between the concert snare and toms, and on the last hit of each hand you could hit a cymbal or something or work it so you get a challenge while warming up