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Re: Can someone explain importance of long tones and how long to practice them?

Author: GBK
Date: 2018-01-15 21:19

As I've written before, long tones by themselves are an inefficient use of your practice time.

I do not use long tones in my warm up and do not advise my students to use them either. I feel that they accomplish very little and take unnecessary time away from scales and arpeggios, which are the building blocks of technique.

A better approach would be to play your scales very slowly, listening for smooth connections between the notes, and checking that the down and/or up movement of each finger is absolutely precise and seamless.

I also do not think that long tones help to improve your tone quality. Playing notes slowly, in context, whether scalewise or arpeggiated, and matching their sonority and color will do much more to develop your overall tonal concept.

Music making is the connections of notes at different speeds, not just one sustained note...GBK

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