Wednesday, December 04, 2013

Swing Through


In theory, once the ball leaves the club head, the club should have no further effect on the ball.
Right??

And yet ...

we all understand intuitively that, if you don't swing through the ball, you won't hit it very well.  If you just "chop at" the ball, stopping the club head at the point of contact, you probably won't hit it very far or well.

This reminds of me of students who "poke at" notes instead of blowing through them.  All the attention seems focused on the beginnings of the note with no thought to blowing that air all the way through the note.  So much resonance/musicality happens after the note has begun!

This reminds me of that golf swing for some reason.  Just as you would stroke through the entire swing, you should blow THROUGH the note to send it "sailing" away with full tone.