Klarinet Archive - Posting 000288.txt from 1997/05

From: BKruse@-----.com
Subj: Re[2]: College Auditions)
Date: Fri, 9 May 1997 15:09:58 -0400

Reasons to write out scales and arpeggios:

1. It might be a scale you don't already have in your head (e.g., some
exotic ethnic thing you've never been exposed to)
2. You might want a label attached to it (e.g., the gypsy minor someone
mentioned earlier, or any of the blues variants in jazz). Some of us old
guys remember the concept of modes but can't remember which names go with
them (how does hypomixolydian go?)
2a. It can help you catalog how many scales you have available to you
3. It can help force you to use the full range of the instrument
3a. It can assist you in practicing more complicated scale patterns
(Stievenard comes to mind, or possibly figured-bass type stuff)
4. Reinforcing the connection between playing the scales and seeing the
pattern on paper can help with sight-reading

That's what comes to mind at the moment. Anyone have any others?

Barry

_____
Subject: Re: College Auditions)
Author: dsears@-----.org at MINDSCAPE
Date: 5/9/97 9:45 AM

On Fri, 9 May 1997, Roger Shilcock wrote:
> Why people need *books* for scales? It's much more instructive to write >
them out yourself. For one thing, it teaches you to write music so that >
you can read it - useful and maybe revealing???
> Roger Shilcock
Without disagreeing with the value of learning to write music notation, I'd
like to go a step further: why do people need written music of any sort for
scales? It seems to me that scales and arpeggios are the most basic stuff
of music, which everyone should be able to learn by ear and play from
memory almost without thinking.
--Doug
--------------------------
Doug Sears dsears@-----.org/~dsears