Composing While Practicing Scales

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For/to help beginners/improvers indulging in deliberate practice to improve their banjo playing. An open group.

88 Members, Created 11/6/2017 -

Administrators: AndyW (owner) , Boadicea , WayneConrad

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From WayneConrad on 1/8/2018 7:54:48 AM

This idea for practicing scales comes from the http://music.stackexchange.com site, where this answer by Neil Schipper says:

If you're practicing scales as part of a larger goal of advancing your musicality, I suggest that as soon as you notice yourself getting sloppy, try to transition to a more of a composer/improviser mental state, and try to make up little melodies in the scale, making generous use of mixing long and short duration notes and pauses. So, less emphasis on muscle control, and more on "story-telling"; you may find you are internalizing the scales in ways that are surprising and satisfying.

(Stack Exchange Inc; user contributions licensed under cc by-sa 3.0 with attribution required).

Practicing scales is pretty boring, so this is an interesting idea: Once you're so thoroughly bored with scales that you've stopped paying attention, switch to using those scales to make up melodies. Neat idea!

6 Comments
	Boadicea says: 1/7/2018 10:36:45 PM That is a great idea! Start making melodies and improvising right from the beginning!
	Boadicea says: 1/7/2018 10:38:47 PM My banjo teacher is talking about this stuff all the time!
	Boadicea says: 1/8/2018 12:35:04 AM That is a great idea! Start making melodies and improvising right from the beginning!
	WayneConrad says: 1/8/2018 2:32:58 AM @Boadicea I was reminded of your instructor, and mine, when I read it.
Deleteme says: 1/8/2018 6:40:06 AM I love what you have termed this as, "story telling." Yes that sounds quite interesting.
	WayneConrad says: 1/8/2018 8:05:25 AM @Northl - It is Neil Schipper who said it, not I. I agree, it's a great term.
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