Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2009-04-12 15:56
I think you should not separate major and minor keys.
As to whether it's better to learn all the patterns - scales, thirds, arpeggios, etc. - for each key at once or learn each pattern separately - all scales, then all keys in thirds, etc. - there probably isn't a universal answer. Most of us, at least here in the U.S., probably learned the major scales followed by the relative minors of each scale before we went on to scales in thirds or arpeggios or ascending tetrachords or the other patterns that authors of technique books use. But that may have been because the major scales (usually up to 4 flats and 4 sharps) are required for things like county/district/state auditions, and many school band and orchestra directors use them for seating auditions.
The creators of the books use one or the other approaches as organizing methods (Rubank Advanced actually uses both - the book is organized by patterns or musical forms but a table in front facilitates selection by key) because you have to organize the material one way or the other. Some patterns are definitely trickier than others and you probably would do better to spend time with the easier ones in each key. Diatonic scales, tonic arpeggios and scales in thirds are probably the standards most serious students learn first. Breaking the scales up into tetrachords and other patterns (as Baermann does) like the Hannon excercises for piano are reinforcing but not of primary importance, and scales in wider intervals than thirds - 4ths, 5ths, 6ths, etc. - can be more difficult. I've generally found the exercises that Hite devises near the end of each page (if we're thinking of the same Hite book) to be more fun than necessary.
In the end I don't think it matters much whether you learn all the scales, then all the thirds, then all the arpeggios or you learn all three for each key one at a time. As I said at the beginning, I think major and minor keys are of equal importance. I also think that, for maintenance practice, routines like the ones (Daily Studies, I think he calls them - I don't have any of the books in front of me) in the second part of Klose and included also, I think, in the Hite book and several others, that go through all the keys around the circle of fifths in one pattern, are very useful.
Karl
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The Clarinet BBoard
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