Scale Warm-Up Exercises - Your Favorites

[Alex Orr]

Been thinking I should go back and start using scale exercises as warm-up for practices. Anyone have any favorites? Generally I just pick a scale and play it all over the neck, mixing FFcP forms with just running all over the fingerboard. Yeah...there is really no "exercise" to the exercise, just noodling for 5-10 minutes, sometimes with a metronome. I'd like some more formal scale exercises. Stuff that warms me up well, challenges me just a bit, and maybe helps me see my scales in a new light. Anyone have any they'd like to share?

[greg_tsam]

FFcP is great stuff. Have you checked out the .tef files under Exercises? There are a great set from Tim O. and David G. just to mention a few. Aonzo has some and classical etudes from Dancla.

[greg_tsam]

http://www.mandolincafe.com/cgi-bin/...arch?name=FFcP

FFcP .tef but I bought the book. Good stuff from Ted E.

[greg_tsam]

Don't forget the .tef files on Mandozine. This was one of the first sites I found when I bought my beginner mando. Here's a link to the exercises. http://www.mandozine.com/music/searc...rder=A&submit=

[russintexas]

I've started using hornpipes and jigs. Largely the same content, but more musically satisfying.

[JRcohan]

Hey there,
The FFcP mentioned has helped me tons! Having said that open strings sound so good here is a little exercise I use to warm up. Also any folded scales or starting and ending on other notes than the 1 (tonic,) is helpful. In my video and tabs below you will notice I do that for the key of D major, make your own variations with other keys.

Good luck and keep pickin,

http://jakecohan.com/info/2012/08/29...-the-beginner/

[Miss Lonelyhearts]

Life is too short. I play tunes. Scales are fine if you enjoy playing them.
I used to think that scales were important if you wanted to play jazz or swing or other improvisational music. But then I realized that I don't like the sound of most scale and arpeggio based improvisation. I'd rather riff off the melody and thematic ideas than off scales. YMMV.

[Jordan Ramsey]

Scales are vocabulary. Just like learning the alphabet is a precursor to writing and communicating verbally... Learning scales is a necessary evil if you want to communicate or improvise musically... No matter how boring they can be in an improvisational setting, understanding key centers and scale patterns on the instrument is a crucial part of improvising effectively. A great way to break up the monotony of up and down scales (and find practical improvisational applications) is to work on broken scales. Listen to Sam Bush, and you'll hear broken scales all over the place... Here are a few broken scale exercises that I warm up with...



Broken Scale Exercises in G.mp3

[keebler]

http://mandozine.com/techniques/scal...ly_scales.html

"Continue this pattern step by step until the index finger is on the 10th fret then reverse the starting note (down a half step) and go back down to the open position. Repeat this 3 times! and you'll become a mandolinist." -Carlo Aonzo

I would recomend learning the straight scales before broken. This will also train your ear to hear the distance between notes.

[pickloser]

I like Super FFCP: http://jazzmando.com/new/archives/000210.shtml

[JonZ]

FFcP is good, but I am not big on playing the same patterns daily. What's the next scale in Teds book? Dorian? Lydian? Keep challenging yourself.

If you aren't into jazz, you can sequence patterns for the scales you use in a lot of different ways: 2 up, 1 down, etc.

If you want to see scales in a new light, take a tune that you know well and play it in two different octaves in the same key at each position on the neck. Next day play same in a different key.

Or play it on a different single string in each key.

Choose a key and any small patch of the fretboard, and improvise in one key.

These will get you familiar with where the individual notes you can use are, all over the neck.

One problem with FFcP is that you are always starting from the root, which eventually becomes limiting.

[Bob Clark]

I like scales and arpeggios, but I really like exercises. I know that some players don't like them or don't think they are effective, and I understand their position. But I like them. I like playing them and I think they help me. I use the exercises on one string from Schradieck' The School of Violin-Technics. I find it gets my fingers limbered up and moving and it focuses my thoughts. I do this before I start working on the pieces I want to learn, or playing pieces I already know.

[keebler]

One problem with FFcP is that you are always starting from the root, which eventually becomes limiting.

IMHO, to make the best use of FFcP, you should not consider it "closed", rather open to continue both up and down on the scale.

I think of it as just another manner for pattern recognition, which is basically what the Aonzo scales are doing (FFcP in four positions for two octaves)

[JonZ]

I agree. There isn't a problem with FFcP. The problem is with limiting yourself to the same patterns over and over.

[Dylan Hatch]

I like to use Super FFcP for a warmup, almost every practice. I do like variety in my practice routine, but a little established ritual is cool too. I play one "round" of Super FFcP to start off practice. Start with a different finger each day, and work a little tremolo into a few of the transitions, but other than that the same pattern to start off every practice.

A few things that make that worth my while:
-Striving to 'make it music' each time, not just a string of notes, no matter how many times I have played it. Sets some good habits regarding constant presence in the moment.
-Total comfort with the pattern leaves me some mental "room" to devote some more attention to the line of my wrist, what portion of my fingertip is pinning the string, overall sensation of well-struck notes, etc.

So, anyhoo, that's what I start with. That's not the full warmup - I rotate in some tried and true tunes as well. Also, I am actually using that metronome that has made a lovely decoration for the last few years. Using the metronome in my warmup scales and tunes really gets things going on the right foot.

[Bertram Henze]

I am using tune sets for warmup. Currently Congress Reel/Julia Delaney's/Star of Munster.

[Pasha Alden]

hi Jake and other mandolin players

Your video on scales is really helpful. Will certainly keep picking until I scale the height of perfection - (pun intended.

Again my thanks

Vanillamandolin

[Pasha Alden]

Many thanks - so helpful - especially where no mandolin teacher is in sight. I am starting to think I need to find one on skype. Best

[Pete Counter]

Matt Raum has a two volume set called Mandolin Technique studies, He uses sequences as well as musical studies. Very good exercises.

[Pasha Alden]

Hi many thanks that is helpful and I will look into that also. Cannot get enough material. This forum and the entire cafe is such a source of support. Just need to say I found another beginner mandolin player in SA today. He is in the Western Province and I am in the Eastern province, that is 900 km apart. That gives all an idea of the shortage of mandos in SA! Incidentally we have 9 provinces - just to give you an idea of the geography of SA, or is that the lie of the land?

[Werner Jaekel]

jramsey,

hi,

Why are they called "broken" scales ? Is there any theory or rule behind it, beside the obvious ?

( Pete Martin followed a rule 1 up, 3x down vice versa in his book Mandolin and Fiddle Improvisation Using the Chord Tone Scale

http://www.petimarpress.com/downloads/CTS.pdf )

Broken Scale Exercises in G.pdf

[Perry]

I have a book put out by Flatpicking Magazine called "The Guitar Player's Guitar to Developing Speed, Accuracy, and Tone"

http://flatpickingmercantile.com/Mer...tegory_Code=01

They make a BIG point about practicing exercises to a metronome set at 60bpm. Something about how the brain absorbs ideas well at this speed.

Anyway this may seem excruciatingly slow at first but practicing exercises or even fiddle tunes at this speed can pay off. Make every note sound as good as possible....get the most "juice" out of every note. Up strokes as loud as down strokes etc...

[Jordan Ramsey]

jramsey,

hi,

Why are they called "broken" scales ? Is there any theory or rule behind it, beside the obvious ?

Hi Werner, no theory or rule... just my own way to designate when different patterns are being used on the scale. I guess my reasoning for using that term is that you "break up" the pattern and the standard approach of straight up and down that most people apply to scales. You could just as easily call them scale exercises, or scale pattern exercises. I originally learned my first two examples on trumpet in the Arbans and Clarke books, and my third exercise is variation on Jethro Burns' "Exercise a la Ellington" in his book.

[AlanN]

Oooh, I love that Jethro Duke thing, too JR!

One that lousy picker Alan Bibey likes is Do-to-Do 1 octave major scale, then end with the 2 octave arpeggio, no open strings anywhere and your hand does not move on the neck. I try that thing moving up 1 fret at a time, by the 3rd or 4th hit, I'm whacked...

[Pasha Alden]

Hi there, the point about the metronome at a certain speed for our brain to absorb ideas? Very interesting. Many thanks for that thought provoking post.

Best

Vanilla