You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - 7 Secret Ways to Practice Scales

Episode Date: March 29, 2019

On today's episode, Peter and Adam give 7 methods you might not know about on how to practice scales.Secret Ways to Practice ScalesSlowly3rdsArticulation6thsContrary motionOver changesIn your sleepToday's episode is sponsored by the Oxford American. The Oxford American is a magazine dedicated to documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South. Its award-winning annual music issue comes with a CD sampler and digital download - a must-have for any serious music fan. Recent issues have featured Nina Simone, Thelonious Monk, John Cage, and John Cage. Visit https://www.oxfordamerican.org/yhi today for a special subscription discount!Let us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

What? I have a secret. Yeah, I got a secret to you. I'm Adam Manus. And I'm Peter Martin. And that wasn't planned. Like usual? No, I know.

They're never planned, but you really got me on that one. That was so creepy. I mean, I started the creep, and then you up the ante of creep, and it got me. You got me. Well, what people don't realize is after we do those little pithy, witty intros that are totally unplanned. I mean, they're unplanned. Cringy.

They're unplanned to the point. We don't even know who's going to start. But then afterwards, while you hear the music, while that glorious song goes on, we kind of look at each other and make a decision, are we going to keep that one? We usually do keep them. So today it was definitely like...

We almost never don't keep them, which is remarkable because of how bad they are. Hey, hey, we'll let our public tell us that. So you're listening to the You'll Hear at podcast. Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. Today's episode of the podcast is sponsored by the Oxford American. The Oxford American is a magazine dedicated to documenting the complexity and vitality of the American South.

Its award-winning annual music issue comes with a CD sampler and digital download. It's a must-have for any serious music fan. Recent issues have featured Nina Simone, John Cage, Bologna's Monk, John Coltrane. Visit Oxfordamerican.org slash Y-H-I today. That's Oxfordamerican.org

forward slash Y-H-I. Yeah, and just to say real quick, Oxford American for the serious music fan, for the serious literary fan, fan of literature, fan of travel. especially U.S. travel in the South, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, that kind of thing. Florida, Florida, what you know about Florida? My home state, where are you at? But great folks and so glad to be associated with them.

Today, we are giving people creepy secret advice. That's right. Seven secret ways to practice scales. They're not going to be a secret anymore. Click baity, cringy, secret. That's how we do it. That's how we do it. Well, you know, we started this whole, you'll hear it, adventure.

sure it was it was you know we do kind of make fun of the clickbait but our whole concept was that we're going to do clickbait but we're going to actually give them what we're saying yeah we're trying to be a little tongue in cheek with the click bait titles i mean by its very nature it's entirely we should try to go more over the top though so that it's more obvious that we are well you know what we used i feel like we used to do i don't know if we did but we talked about doing like seven secret ways to practice scales and number five is going to blow your mind Number three is going to break your wrist.

Yeah, so we never do that where it's inaccurate. Because, I mean, the reason we don't have the elder pockets to be like, number three is going to really help your development. Number four is going to get you a gig at the wiki, wiki room at the Ramada Inn by the airport. Hey, don't sleep at the Ramada Inn. That's good. Well, we got a couple of emails about, you know, and I get asked all the time from some of our open studio members, like, how do I practice? scales, we actually have a part of one of our courses, the elements of jazz piano, which is our

very fine intermediate course. Yes, yes, right down the middle. We have something called creative scale practice where we do a lot of these things we're talking about. Yeah. Because I think, you know, practicing scales is something that can seem tedious, but there are several different ways to do it, that it's not just this like up and down, linear motion and, you know what I mean?

Yeah. And so hopefully today we can shut some light on some of those. And I know we've covered some of these before, but we haven't done it all, all, all seven so right hopefully we can and i would just want to say too like if you uh if we think about a mindset of creativity and an openness and adventure um as we go through all these i think it will help folks because practicing scales is something that i think you're going to want to do for the rest of your life as a pianist there's a lot of value to it even after you master i feel like you've mastered the scales which i do think is important um but it does become tedious and it

doesn't need to be you know like i realized something this morning i was that you know the weather's been a little bit funky here. So I've been doing some indoor at the gym kind of running and I was on the treadmill. And I was doing some like, you know, interval miles after the first mile. I was like, oh, man, I just, I can't do another mile. And I felt just exhausted. And I look over there and there's like this indoor track that's kind of short. I never really use it.

I said, let me just change things up. Yeah. And as soon as I got on that, I felt so much better. So I thought I was like eight mile, 10th mile. Yeah. It's like 7.5 laps equals a mile, you know. And you think it's going to be a drag. But it was just different.

So sometimes just a mile. mindset of like, let me try something different. And then all of a sudden, because you think that you're exhausted at doing something. And the same thing with scale prey. I'm too, I'm sick of it. I'm tired of it. Look at it a different way. Try it a different way.

That's right. And there's always, there's these ways and then there's others. So number one, I love what you put for number one, which is to practice the scales slowly. Yes. So often we're trying to push the boundaries of what we can do, you know, for speed. Yeah. That we tend to neglect what might be even more important. Yeah.

Which is getting a good sound. Yes. And to do that, you have to practice slowly. Have to practice slowly. And then there can be some challenges, too, when you practice slowly that are unexpected, especially on scales that you feel like you've mastered. What I'll find I'll do is when I go through, and I actually do a lot of my scale practice when I do it slowly,

almost all of it at this point is just like that's the biggest challenge for me. And then, you know, working in some of these things we'll talk about later. When you're playing slowly, you can really concentrate on articulation and sound and evenness because you're playing slowly, but you're not playing out of time. Right, and that's the important part. Sound articulation, evenness, that's something that gets neglected if you're just trying to push the metrona up and up and up.

And sometimes you don't notice it as much when you're playing faster, so this is a time to really be critical and evaluate. A lot of people avoid this because it's difficult, actually. It's very hard. And it's exposing. You know, can it kind of expose you for the fraud that you are? And maybe you think, like, oh, I'm not making gains,

but you are. You're making more gains than you think you are, especially if you're concentrating on getting things nice and even with the articulation that you hear You know, so it's like literally from your brain to your hands to the instrument is is uninterrupted and is exactly the sound you want to try to get. You know, that's the important thing, the control. Are you saying you'll hear it? Yeah.

You practice slowly. You'll hear it. Yeah. Okay. We've got six more, though. What do we got for number two? Number two. Well, this one's yours, but I'm going to pick up on it.

Thirds. Yeah. Okay, so I love practicing in thirds. This is really a way, thirds or tenths. What do you think? Both. Yeah, I probably do, I've always done more tenths than thirds, but yeah, thirds can be really good, too. But the idea is that you are maybe automating and challenging yourself, but automating some of the fingering.

At first, kind of seeing if you really know it as well as you think that you know it. Sometimes when we only practice, you know, sort of parallel same motion, then we think, okay, I know all these fingerings really well. I have those automated. But then when you change up something and they're coming out. of order in terms of hands together. And obviously if you're practicing thirds or tenths, this is hands together practice. Then you realize, you know, your fingerings are getting off and stuff.

And so it's a way to really challenge yourself. And you can move it up to other intervals too as well. It can really be any interval. You can practice in seven, six. And all these, especially like diminished scales work well to go to some funny intervals. But it's just a way to challenge yourself to make sure you're going automatically to the correct fingering. That's right.

And, you know, it helps address some situations. Like, so if you practice on the piano, if you practice an octave, or two octaves apart. That has useful applications, right? If you want to solo with two hands, very useful. But then if you go to do thirds and you haven't practiced scales at all in thirds,

there's a huge disconnect. You have to be exposed, as you were saying, like one of your hands has to be on all the pilot. You can't be thinking about both simultaneously at the same time. It's just impossible.

So getting a good practice routine with scales and thirds and like you said, six is later down for me, which now we could just skip right over that. Oh, good. I'm bored. Thanks, buddy.

Well, and you know what? We were accused in a comment recently of being a piano-centric podcast. Two comments. Two comments. We're just stepping into that now. But we'll just say, okay, obviously practicing slow, this. I think all these actually apply to everybody, all instruments. You might think, okay, how can I practice in thirds?

Broken thirds, broken thirds. Broken thirds. So it's not just for pianists and hands alone. Obviously, you know, if you're a horn player, singer, you're doing one note at a time. but there's ways to apply all these things. And again, it's about changing up, you know, your mindset to challenge yourself in some different ways. And, I mean, fingering is different for,

but it does apply to many instruments. It doesn't apply to a vocalist. It applies to a trumpet player, you know, when you work on different fingerings and stuff, saxophone and those kind of things. So number three, we have articulation. Very, very important thing to practice in your scale practice, even if that's the only thing you're focusing on. Man, I love art.

I was at the art museum the other day. Articula. Is that the same thing? No. Just a pun machine over there. It's Friday, man. It's hump day. I'm excited. We're humping right into the weekend now. It's that bridge between the week to the... Everybody heard that?

Everybody heard that. No, so articulation, practice the duration of your notes. Not just super legato and super sticado, but everything in between. If you're practicing slow, you have a variety of... You know, these breaks that can happen. Practice doing that. One of the best advice... pieces of advice I got from a piano teacher,

I think I was at the new school, I forget who said it, but was when you, the back end of the note is as important, if not more important than the attack. When you release the key is as important. So practice releasing. Don't just let your finger attack at the right rate

and then you're just willy-nilly lift in your hand everywhere. You know what I mean? Yeah, I like it. And that's another thing along with the evenness that we were talking about rhythmic, evenness but also evenness within the articulation and then this is definitely an area we can get creative in terms of

staccato, legato, spacato marcato. How about a little diminished scale marcato practice? That'll send you to Wikipedia pretty damn quickly. Number four is six and we covered that so moving on. Right. And so I'd just say too that like we were talking about diminished

are really good for the different intervals. You can do any interval six. Minor six major six yeah. So good. Number five is contrary motion. This really is applicable to piano only and it's really, really cool, very helpful. Maybe vibraphone. Yeah, that would be, anyway. But you know what?

It's cool about practicing contrary motion. Syphyser. You could practice, I'm just going to barrel through and just ignore you. You could practice starting on the same note. Like if you do like a C major scale up and down two octaves, contrary motion, you could start in a C. Celesta. Or you could start on like a C and E. You know what I mean?

Org. You could do a six and start and do contrary motion. Catholic organ. Okay. I'm just naming other things that it does. applied to. You said it was only pianist? Harpsichord. Clavichord.

Number six. We said that. Glockenspiel. Glockenspiel. TGIF, folks. TGIF. Okay, number six. Overchanges. Scale running. This is what I was thinking of six. Yes, I love this. This I always forget about.

And I never did this a lot. You've talked about this a lot. And so this is what I'm going to work into my routine because I always, it just has never been a part of my routine. But, I mean, it probably opens up more possibilities. any of these that we're talking about, right? If you take a modal tune like one finger snap and you set a metronome and you run scales over the changes, changing when the changes change. And then changing direction,

improvising when you change direction, it's gonna be eye-opening about like being able to hit those transitions. It's gonna really help on your improvising, you know, when you're trying to get long, elegant phrases, being able to link those scales together. And what would be cool is like you start going up in one direction over the chord and then snap

your fingers come down one finger snap okay is a pun machine yeah no but i think two these and then next level with this i'm seeing incorporating that along with some of these other things like broken thirds and stuff like like like totally you know yeah yeah two hands don't sleep on the two hands even over a tune that's something that jeff keezer probably oh yes for sure i mean broken seventh chords you know and slowly on a ballot you can run run one through some scales and that's really you know putting putting it in a place that, like this is the kind of thing you'd want to practice, a way to practice scales when you're really like,

oh, I'm exhausted with skills. I really don't want to do it because it places it more in music than any of the other ones. Pick one of your favorite tunes and run the changes, not stopping, just playing over, switching the scale when appropriate. Yep, so what? That's what I'll do it on.

That's boring. That would be boring. What do you got for number seven? Number seven, practice in your sleep. Okay, good night, everybody. That's a secret way. Okay, now you might. you might ask what are you talking about perhaps ask me that uh hey Pete hey what are you

talking about okay so I'm glad you asked thank you Adam um so what I mean is like is this is actually a little bit in accuracy in your sleep that you're going to practice it but you want to learn these scales on your instrument all the applicable scales um so that if somebody comes if Adam scary Adam big Adam before Adam lost his weight with with the beard and everything came and broke in your house and woke you up and was like, see the minute scale contrary motion right now and like shoved a keyboard into your hands, then you'd be able to do it. You know, when you had a gun to your head even. Can we tone it down? Sorry, sorry. I got excited there. But what I mean is you can wake up and that you know these things automatically because that's how we need to know scales. You've got

to be able to play them in your sleep. That's true. That is true. Okay. Yeah. I mean, the scenario was terrifying. Well, that's what it's supposed to be. But I mean, under pressure, like you know them so well. So all these other ways of practicing them know that the goal is that you can play them in your sleep. Yeah. And for for that too, I think an important thing is get the right fingering on these scales. You know, check out the McFerrin manual for fingering. I like dogmatic Adam. No, I'm serious. I know. I know. Because if you're if your fingering isn't correct on like some of the, especially the flat scales or whatever, it's going to get sticky. Right, right. All right. Well, there you go. Seven Secret Ways to Practice Scales. We hope you enjoy this. Let us know

if you have any other ones, we'd love to hear them. Happy Friday, everybody. Happy Friday, hump day. Thanks to all our ULHurt listeners. We love you guys. We do love you. And we have two reviews I wanted to read, and one is came via text message.

I didn't know if you know that we can receive text message. Via text message. Yeah, the first one, though, is on the Apple podcast, and this is fabulous Daily Piano Advice is the title, Five Stars. This podcast is first rate and deserve seven stars. Both hosts have a passion. Oh, did I read this one?

already. Both hosts have a passion for the piano and jazz. Great topics. Okay, sorry. I mean, now you're literally repeating reviews, buddy. Okay, here's a, oh yeah, and I did the one about it, not being much of an investment of time. Sorry. Amazing. Amazing. It's some really great. Let me see if I can find. I love how prepared we are for this show. Okay. Okay, let me read the text message one. Okay. And this is from, like a personal text message? Yeah, and this is from kind of a famous jazz musician. Can I mention her name? Please do. Okay. This is text message. Enjoying your podcasts. My favorite part is the first 10 seconds, smiley face, winking emoji. Oh, because she likes your tune. Yeah. Okay. No, I think she likes the back and forth thing. Okay. The rest is awesome too.

That is from the great Anad Cohen. Man, listener of the podcast. That makes me so happy because I just am such a huge fan. I'm such a huge fan of her music and of her. Yeah, she's great. She's amazing. Awesome. We had her on the other podcasts. We'll have to get her on the, we had her on the process. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And now defunct. She was just here in St. Louis. We didn't have a known. That was a slept on that. That was a big whiff for us. Well, thank you and not. Yep. Yeah. Shout out to the Oxford American.

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Yeah. Well, until tomorrow. Well, till Monday. Oh, you'll hear it.