A metronome is a great tool, use it regularly. It is more important to be able to play scales accurately and correctly than to try and go too fast, too soon. Then you can start bumping it up a little at a time. Stay at that tempo for a few days at least, until you are very comfortable at that tempo. Find out where your “point of failure” is and back the metronome down ten beats per minute. Gradually increase the speed till you reach the point of failure, in other words, where you just can’t do it anymore at that speed. The others have met untimely deaths due to their… ahem… inaccuracy, shall we say? Set your metronome for a medium tempo and begin playing. I didn’t say easy, but it will do good things for your technique. Practicing your scales with a metronome is highly recommended. As you improve and start playing more scales, i.e., minor scales, pentatonic, blues scales, etc., you should go through all of the scales you know in that key. One method would be to take one scale a week and practice that scale only. I have heard it described as a “gypsy” scale.Ī good idea is to practice your scales in some logical manner. It has an Eastern European, or Baltic sound. This scale has a very recognizable sound because of the augmented second between the sixth and seventh degrees. This is an example of a C harmonic minor scale. Here is an example of a C melodic minor scale. The descending melodic minor scale has the same key signature as the relative major key, Eb major, in this case. The way that I think about these scales is that the ascending is just like a major scale, only it has a flatted third. The melodic minor descending scale is also known as the “natural” minor scale. Melodic minor, ascending and descending, and harmonic minor. There are three forms of minor that you should be familiar with. Finally, practice the dominant 7ths and dominant 9ths. When you’re feeling comfortable, go on to minor triads, followed by minor 7’s, then minor 9’s. I would recommend that you start with major triads, then major 7’s, major 9 arpeggios. Here is a neat little exercise that goes through the circle of fourths using dominant seventh chords.Īrpeggios should be played over the entire range of the Saxophone. Transpose to all scales.įirst tongue each note, then slur the entire scale. Like this:Īnother great little finger buster is this pattern: Slur three, tongue one,…etc, etc.Īs soon as possible, you want to start playing patterns with your scales. Slur two, tongue two, then tongue two, slur two. Be sure to play these scales and patterns both tongued and slurred. For a great exercise playing arpeggios that cycle around all twelve keys, go here. Be sure to play the minor scales too, here. Check out the major scale lesson page here. By doing this you are practicing scales in areas of your horn you might not get a chance to play in very often. Doing your scales one or two octaves up and down is alright in the beginning, but you should try to play all scales over the entire horn, you get much more bang for your buck. G major would go up to high E and down to low B. In other words, a C scale would go up to high F and down to low B. The first thing about doing scales that I would suggest is to do the scales up as high as you can go, only playing notes in that scale, and down as low as you can go, using only those notes in that scale.
0 kommentar(er)
