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Re: Why Momorize Scales, etc?

Author: Tony M
Date: 2011-01-29 05:38

I'm intrigued (and trying not to be sceptical) but could you please elaborate on the other ways to skin the cat? Scales won't make anyone a good musician, I agree, but I think of them as so fundamental to what I understand as developing facility with an instrument that I find it hard to think of any instrument without thinking of how you play scales on it.

I read a review this morning of a biography of Alan Lomax, the person who collected songs and other things for the Library of Congress and others. Whilst he might have been somewhat disorganised in his own life he was insistent on instruments and tuning: "It is very important to record the tuning of all instruments that play a part in the music, to photograph the instruments and to get the informant to explain how he plays it." Now I realise a Galician fisherman might not sit down and learn scales in order to play but certainly the relationship between the tuning of an instrument and the scales that are normally played on it takes us a long way to understanding a type of music.

And let's not forget the value of learning scales in switching instruments. Fingering and embouchure only gets one so far (try easing your airflow or relaxing your bite as you move into the higher registers of a piano - not a lot of help), scales allow one to navigate new instruments. Where you sail, and how fluidly you get there is your business.

I never knew that I was so devoted to scales and this self-revelation must be my excuse for going on so long. But I am genuinely intrigued by other ways of skinning the cat, please tell.

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Why Momorize Scales, etc? new

CarlT

2011-01-29 00:41