You'll Hear It 7 Ways to Practice Scales Creatively - #4
Feb 3, 2018
Creative approaches to scale practice that keep routines fresh and musical. Slow practice to expose tone and technique. Pivoting across registers and contrary motion for stamina and coordination. Working broken thirds and triads to map scale relationships. Prioritizing hard keys and varying dynamics and articulations to reveal and fix weaknesses.
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Practice Scales Extremely Slowly
- Practice scales very slowly to expose technical and tonal flaws you miss at faster tempos.
- Peter Martin stresses extreme slowness to listen for evenness, articulation, wrist alignment, and consistent tone across both hands.
Pivot While Running Scales
- Pivot as you move up and down the keyboard instead of always starting and stopping at the octaves.
- Adam Maness suggests turning around at different degrees (thirds, random spots) to build stamina and avoid hand-shape ruts.
Fixing Left Hand Trouble By Practicing Upper Register
- Adam started pivot practice after struggling with left-hand octaves in the tenor register during improvisation.
- He realized he never practiced that register with his left hand and added targeted scale work to fix it.