Scale practice

[Jim Bevan]

Nobody's noticed the irony of a mandolin teacher judging the exploitativness of music teachers based on the percentage of professionals produced?

[JonZ]

Phrases that ascend or descend by scaler steps are common. Playing a scale is something you should be able to do, if you want to improvise. But you need to practice other patterns too.

[catmandu2]

I long gave away my Segovia's Diatonic Major and Minor Scales and Slur Exercises and Chromatic Octaves folios--essential and fundamental tools for instrumental mastery.

What do you want to do with music? Jazz bassists, for example, study scales all day long..

[Mike Bunting]

What I find interesting is that no one has commented on what the article says about practicing scales, only commenting on the value or not of practicing scales.

[JonZ]

I'm not sure what you mean. Seems folks are saying you can work on fundamentals with any pattern.

[JonZ]

Nobody's noticed the irony of a mandolin teacher judging the exploitativness of music teachers based on the percentage of professionals produced?

No doubt they are all laughing all the way to the bank.

[sgrexa]

Mike,

Thanks for sharing the article. I think you can tell a lot by observing someone playing a simple C major scale on the mandolin. Dynamics, clarity of note and tone, and just general proficiency can be evaluated quite well IMO. I also happen to think that playing and practicing scales is something I have been doing from the beginning and has never gotten boring. Instead, I find it to be a very meditative and soothing way to lose yourself for a few minutes. You also subconsciously find ways to link certain scales together and use this information while improvising in certain musical settings. I would hope that these scales sound a lot more pleasing now than they did 18 years ago, but you would have to ask my significant other who has been subject to this for quite some time

Sean

[Mike Bunting]

I'm not sure what you mean. Seems folks are saying you can work on fundamentals with any pattern.

Playing patterns is part of playing scales. Do you think it just means running up and down a diatonic scale?

[mando on the side]

Nobody's noticed the irony of a mandolin teacher judging the exploitativness of music teachers based on the percentage of professionals produced?

No doubt they are all laughing all the way to the bank.

Not sure if y'all are serious or just being funny, maybe both. But first of all, I'm mainly a piano and violin teacher; most teachers don't make a lot of money, so no, I'm NOT laughing when I go to the bank. Second, people find me to instruct them because either they want a second ear/eye, and WANT a more regimented approach. If I were in it for the money, I wouldn't be teaching.

BTW I LOVE teaching. I learn just as much as I do the students at times. It's made me more aware of my own technique and expression, and it's helped me develop a better ear. I love the fact that I get to take the journey of learning with my students as they progress; it's about exploring the music together, whatever the genre.

[catmandu2]

What I find interesting is that no one has commented on what the article says about practicing scales, only commenting on the value or not of practicing scales.

I'm not sure what you mean either? There are numbers of us here (as I've read over the years) who've commented on how to use scales, etc.

What I wanted to mention--by way of the Segovia materials--but forgot, is that (I think I recall) here, for example, the author discusses how to approach scale study in the introduction...I wanted to share that content, but then remembered I'd given it away.

But for example jazz bass--we do anything and everything with scales.

Or do you mean, specifically, as pertains to mandolin?

[JonZ]

Not sure if y'all are serious or just being funny, maybe both.

Speaking for myself: funny.

There is a constant tension between practice depth versus breadth. In fact, it might be the fundamental problem of mastering a complex skill.

[Mark Wilson]

What I find interesting is that no one has commented on what the article says about practicing scales, only commenting on the value or not of practicing scales.

It was a fresh look at how and why scales can matter. I always thought of them as useful for training your ear and mind to intervals and as finger exercises for starting out - before you have learned enough interesting material to play. I now can see them in the light of working on technique w/o being encumbered with the details of 'songs'.

"It’s an opportunity to strip away the dozens of other variables we would otherwise encounter in a piece of music, and focus on mastering just one aspect of our technique in isolation."

Maybe akin to practicing rhythm with a towel over your fretboard.

[Jim Bevan]

I was referring to the second paragraph of Mandocrucian's first post of this thread, which seems to me to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black.

Mr Mandocrucian is a mandolin teacher (I've bought his books), and I'm wondering, tongue-in-cheek, what percentage of his students have "made the cut", and are now making a living playing mandolin?

[mandocrucian]

"Mr." Bevan is quite the smarty-pants today!

There is a sizeable amount of exploitiveness in the classical realm, especially when the (music) students are also in middle/high school. Not much difference in some ways from some hack guitarist becoming a "mandolin teacher" in a local music store, as the number one priority in common is separating the student from his/her parent's money. Get on a instrument list that primarily serves the classical crowd, and you'll get to read plenty of revealing stuff regarding the business of teaching and teaching studios. Just keep the kid coming back for that weekly lesson.

So, I have some older publications that are still in print. (Jules Verne and Arthur Conan Doyle are still in print too.) I used to enjoy teaching, and I was extremely good at it. But it's not something that particularly interests me anymore (i.e., like the last 8 years or so).

Actually, if I were to give honest advice to a young kid with real potential, I'd recommend taking up, or switching over to, electric guitar, fiddle, or keyboards - instruments with plenty of commercial and musical potential, and not to handcuff yourself to a (limited) niche instrument confined to some minor genres.

If, on the other hand, the kid was an obnoxious little snot I'd tell him....



"Kid, you've got the magic touch, you'll be a monster
on the mando!!! I wouldn't ever consider playing anything else,
ever, if I were you!"

[catmandu2]

Actually, if I were to give honest advice to a young kid with real potential, I'd recommend taking up, or switching over to, electric guitar, fiddle, or keyboards - instruments with plenty of commercial and musical potential...

Bass fiddle! -- as much work as you want! (and, the added bonus of being involved in the complete architecture of the music, always)

[Jim Bevan]

yeah yeah yeah...

Here are the links to my daily scale practice, in four different formats. Download and use what works best for you, and after a week, come back here and leave a comment on whether or not the speed and fluidity of your playing increased, and (more relevant to the thread) whether or not you think that it was time well spent.


mp3: https://www.dropbox.com/s/sxl83jo8go...20Position.mp3

midi: https://www.dropbox.com/s/oono6ddkrq...20Position.mid

pdf: https://www.dropbox.com/s/mn5udzcmyx...20Position.pdf

the original Sibelius file: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7uhjtbivvx...20Position.sib

Takes 55 minutes to run through the whole thing.
Everything's in first position, or in "half position" (1st finger on the 1st fret, 2nd finger on the 2nd fret). There are a couple of 1st finger shifts, from F~Gb, 1st and 2nd frets on the E-string, for the keys of Db and Gb. I play open strings where possible -- your pinky will get enough of a work-out as it is.
It runs through the cycle of fourths twice, going up, except that the harder keys get dropped as the speed increases.

[Dave Wrede]

Niles,
Though i wouldn't strongly disagree with you, you do make it sound like the "5,000 Fingers of Dr T."

[Jim Bevan]

I should point out that the first two bars are just intro (not played on the mando), and there's a bar between each key etc.

(I realize that it looks kinda strange on the pdf )

[SincereCorgi]

I should point out that the first two bars are just intro (not played on the mando), and there's a bar between each key etc.

(I realize that it looks kinda strange on the pdf )

Yeah, I was wondering about that.

The playalong aspect is a good idea and I am curious to try it, but I can't get the dropbox link for the mp3 to work.

[Jim Bevan]

It's working for me (and yes, I've logged out etc) -- I just downloaded it, and it plays.

The audio is an acoustic guitar, one octave below you, so it's easy to hear yourself while "playing along".

[SincereCorgi]

Yep, it just took longer than I expected. Thanks.

[des]

I have a feeling that what you get out of (and need to put into) playing scales must vary hugely from instrument to instrument and genre to genre. The original article seemed to be using scales as a means of dealing with other issues than the scale as such - e.g. phrasing and bow technique. The scales and arpeggios on plucked or bowed stringed instruments tend to be structured around repeatable fingering patterns such as FFCP or CAGED and in a sense are relatively straightforward. It must be utterly different say on a saxophone where each scale requires an individual and unique fingering. And different again on keyboards.

[belbein]

I'd been wondering if FFCP works in saxophone.

[Marc Ferry]

That was really interesting... I've never looked at scales that way.

[foldedpath]

Bass fiddle! -- as much work as you want! (and, the added bonus of being involved in the complete architecture of the music, always)

Unless it's Irish trad, where we frown on that stuff. Unless you're Trevor Hutchinson with
Lúnasa. That's a one-time, single use exemption.