scale practice (revised)

[SAdoublex]

we talk about this alot and i jus want to know. ive had auditions for regional bands and those are over. so i want to work on scales a little less than i did before. so wat do you suggest as a good amount of time on scales is. and wat exactly should i be doin?

wat i did before the auditon is taking all 12 majors and minors at 60 bpm and adding 10 bpm everytime i was satified. if u think about it its kills alot of practicing time. i want to do so much more. please give me your feedback

[Mango Birkie]

Try this. I first had to do this as an exercise for a lesson. I have expanded it somewhat and made it part of my regular warm-up routine. This is in all in triplets. Start at the route, arpeggio up 3,5,7,9, then back down the whole scale to the route, back up the whole scale to the 9, then finish off with 7,5,3. That is 8 sets of triplets. Do that for all 12 keys for the major 7, 7, minor 7, and minor 7 flat 5. A good tempo for a warm up is 60 bpm, each triplet getting one beat. You can do that in 5 minutes. Start on any note you feel like and go through the cycle.

[Razzy]

That's a very good jazz-oriented practice for ear training, but it doesn't do a lot for technique cleaning up. I try to separate technique exercises from jazz scale and chord "ear" exercises. To date, the best technique scale exercise I've found is to do all the majors and harmonic minors, root to highest note in range, to lowest note in range, back up to root. so you do each scale the full range of the horn. Do it slurred to work on your technique. I try to do 16th notes at quarter about 120 for each one. Only takes about 15 minutes once you've got it down, a great exercise to do each day to keep your technique in order.

[Straightsax]

Only takes about 15 minutes once you've got it down, a great exercise to do each day to keep your technique in order.

DAILY PRACTICE is something one cannot overemphasize. It's better to do a little each day than all at once. Muscle (Embouchure) Tone and Body Memory benefit greatly from this routine. Especially, when you are starting out. It's a good habit to form. The horn likes it too.

When you add it all up, you will be further ahead.

Back to lurking.

Chris.

[wiju]

i have this routine i do every day in a 4 hours of playing:
(2 hours)
10 min sight read.
10 min long tones.
10 min of chords.
10 min chromatic scale.
10 min review of all scales.
10 min diminished scales and hexafonic.
1 hour of one scale in diferent patterns per week, starting in 60 bpm and adding 3 bpm each time i do it right (legato and detache), starting in the lowest note of the scale in the instrument and finishing in the higgest, up and down. (ex. 1234,2345,3456, etc and down, 4321,3217,2176 etc).

hugs

[stitch]

we talk about this alot and i jus want to know. ive had auditions for regional bands and those are over. so i want to work on scales a little less than i did before. so wat do you suggest as a good amount of time on scales is. and wat exactly should i be doin?

wat i did before the auditon is taking all 12 majors and minors at 60 bpm and adding 10 bpm everytime i was satified. if u think about it its kills alot of practicing time. i want to do so much more. please give me your feedback

Hey SAdoublex, when you've finished your scale work you might want to brush up your spelling ......
:wink: