Author: allencole
Date: 2009-04-14 08:16
I vote for learning your basics grouped by key. This creates a chance to live in each key for a certain period, just getting to know it. Think of yourself as a blind person moving into a 12-room house. You want to confine yourself at first, to the rooms that you can best navigate and get to know those obstacles. Then move on to the more cluttered rooms one by one, getting to know where the furniture is.
As for reading vs. memorizing, you can have the best of both worlds. I prefer this sequence.
1 - Student learns & memorizes major scales and arpeggios out to at least 4 sharps & 4 flats.
2 - Student transposes from a template, their major scale, a scale-in-thirds, and a sequence of I-IV-V arpeggios in a given key. After the teacher checks the paperwork and discusses the technique to be used in each exercise, the student practices them (by reading) until memorization is achieved.
3 - The student then spends a week sightreading, playing by ear, and preparing pieces in this key, while doing the paper work for the next key to be studied.
Once basics are learned in this way, they are more comfortable playing in Baermann III, Rubank Selected Studies, duet books, etc.
It also allows a lot of flexibility in terms of reading vs. playing by ear, and in playing with the composition of scales and arpeggios. One game I really enjoy is having the student flat the third in different arpeggios of the I-IV-V sequence to experience major, minor, harmonic minor and dorian chord sequences. There are lots of similar things you can try.
Allen Cole
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The Clarinet BBoard
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