ALL THE NOTES AND MORE is designed to help you develop and maintain your tone, tonguing, technique, flexibility, endurance, range, and more no matter what styles you play. In it you will practice and master all kinds of scales and arpeggios in all ranges of your instrument. They are the necessary building blocks of music, and all top performers have them ingrained into their playing so they can perform at the highest levels of musicianship. Here's just a few suggestions for using these studies:
- Always play with a great sound. No matter whether you're playing high or low, fast or slow...always listen to yourself closely to play with a great sound. That's what others are hearing, make them say... "Oh what a sound!" ...when you play.
- It is never possible to play these studies too slowly. However it is possible to play them too fast. By playing slow, you can listen closely to the fundamentals of playing to make adjustments that make playing the studies quicker much easier and more musical. As you play, be listening closely to yourself so that each note has a pleasing sound.
- Don't just play notes - always make music!
- When learning a study, you may wish to start with the last measure, play it a few times until you are comfortable with it, then back up one measure and play the last two measures. Then practice the last three measures. Repeat this strategy until you are at the beginning of the study. This way you will have lots of practice finishing strong.
- Always use various articulations for the studies. Examples: all slurred, all tongued, slur four, slur two tongue two, tongue two slur two, and on and on. Mix it up as you play through a tonality, it will help you keep things interesting and your mind alert.
- When first going through the studies, you may want to spend a week, or a month, on learning a tonality. After you have learned all the tonalities, you may want to review one tonality a day split up into a few different practice sessions to maintain your level of playing.
- ALTERNATE METHOD (recommended) - start with study #1 in the C tonality, play it. Then play #1 in the F tonality, then #1 in Bb, then #1 in Eb, and so on all the way through the 12 tonalities. When learning the studies do this for a week (or two) on each study and you will master it in all tonalities. Then proceed to study #2 and use the same system to learn it in all 12 tonalities. Continue through all the studies in this manner. Always vary the articulations you use throughout your practice session of these studies.
- For advanced players, you will want to expand the studies into the altissimo register by playing them up an octave.
- Practice slowly at first - work for even tone and rhythm, then speed up as you can play cleanly.
By Mark Hendricks - More info at www.MPHmusic.com
