During the 1970s, Stevens 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.
Method of Movement for Marimba 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. Stevens 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.
Stroke Types Single Independent Strokes: the ability to strike single (or repeated single) strokes without moving the unused mallet held in that hand.
Single Alternating Strokes: executed as if they were alternating single independent strokes, these strokes consist of discrete, side to side rockings of the hand.
Double Vertical Strokes: a stroke that produces two pitches simultaneously. (It is somewhat of "
double stop" with one hand).
Double Lateral Strokes: single motions that produce two successive pitches. It begins as a double vertical stroke but goes through a split second metamorphosis where one mallet strikes before the other. ==Performance==