 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: bob gardner
Date: 2001-11-01 21:47
How important do you consider minor, harmonic minor and melodic minor scales in your playing and enjoyment of the clarinet
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Author: ron b
Date: 2001-11-02 03:04
Hi, Bob
Interesting topic, how far to carry your studies. Welllll, as far as this guy's opinion goes;
I feel that you don't need a lot of (theory) knowledge to enjoy playing, BUT... if you get into the nuts and bolts of music construction it gets even more interesting. A little music theory won't tax anyone too much and I consider at least a little familiarity with major, chromatic, harmonic minor and melodic minor scales important from that aspect.
But, yeah, just for the enjoyment of playing, doing some daily exercises from a method book or just blowing some tunes daily will be enough. You don't have to be a scholar. There are many players who don't read music well at all and do just fine playing by ear. All depends on what you want to do I guess -- as long as it's fun, keep on tootin' whatever pleases you. Let the composers sort the nuts and bolts :]
- ron b -
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Author: bob gardner
Date: 2001-11-02 03:30
ron: I asked the professor why we needed to know all of this stuff, and he said --the same reason people speak french, spanish etc etc. they all sound differant.
I have a hard enough time with the major scales but I will try to understand the minors as well.
peace
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Author: Jessica
Date: 2001-11-02 03:59
Even though my knowledge of music theory is not very extensive, I've found that just having major scales, the three forms of minors, and my chromatics memorized make sight reading *much* easier.
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Author: ron b
Date: 2001-11-02 04:16
I'm in tune with you, Bob.
I was a music major in high school and it was a constant struggle to learn all that stuff. I'd be hard pressed to try to explain it now. Although I recognize the terms well enough to follow a musical conversation, I don't claim to be fluent.
I remember asking our theory/composition instructor pretty much the same question as you did. He compared it to (language) literacy.
As I understand it, our professors are correct; Music IS a language. As with any language, the more literate we are the more easily it can be used effectively. In any case, it takes study and practice to do it well. As hard as I sometimes tried, I never found a way around that :|
peace
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Author: Jason M
Date: 2001-11-02 08:53
I play almost exclusively by ear as I can barely read a note, but I have to say that the more scales you know the more diverse your playing is likely to become, understanding why scales assend differently to decending is not important so long as you know to do it etc. I find that occasionaly when playing an instrument you can become bogged down by your usual chord/note progressions, and a new scale is what you need to revitalise you interest.
J
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2001-11-02 14:38
Bob,
Major , Minor and chromatic scales along with their arpeggios represent 80% of the music you will ever see. Knowing them, gives you the ability to learn pieces much faster, sight read better and understand the music you play. If you recognize a minor scale in a piece you will probably be enclined to play it differently than just thinking they are just consecutive notes.
It is important to know them. I think you are playing for your own pleasure and knowing all your scales inside out is a great technical achievement, but might not be a great musical one. If I were your teacher I would concentrate on helping you recognize what scales are in the piece/etude you are currently working on and make you practice those.
On the other hand, knowing all your scales can only be beneficial, they represent the alphabet of music and as hard as it would be to speak english without knowing about vowels, it is hard to play music properly without knowing about minor scales.
Happy clarineting to you!
-Sylvain
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Author: eilidh
Date: 2001-11-02 23:28
as well as making sight reading easier, i found that learning all of the scales made it easier to get round some of the more difficult notes at speed, side keys and cross fingerings etc
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Author: willie
Date: 2001-11-03 04:51
If it has a sad sounding melody, it most likely will be in a minor key like a lot of Russian and Balken state tunes. Or, you can go further and use a blues scale of sort. They all give the music a different sound.
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Author: allencole
Date: 2001-11-04 19:04
I would classify your major scales as far more important in this sense:
The major scale is the yardstick by which our ear measures melody in this part of the world. Melodic figures and scales are verbally described in comparison to it, and the command of all 12 is the most significant early step in taming the instrument as a whole.
If we are intimate with our major scales, we can easily extract natural minors, and basic jazz things like pentatonic scales, and dorian & mixolydian modes.
For those with collegiate and professional aspirations, all standard scales are--well...STANDARD! But for many strictly amateur children and adults with limited practice time, a full command of major scales is the best priority. Other scales can be learned as the need arises.
This is why audition judges at All-District and All-State competetions want all twelve of your major scales available, and rarely require your minors.
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