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I agree with other answers that the speed to practice scales at is the speed where you can play them accurately, evenly, smoothly, and cleanly.
Beyond that, when you ask what the goal should be in terms of speed or where "diminishing returns" set in, I would counter by asking you, "Why are you practicing scales in the first place? What are you trying to ...
10
Put me in the "beginner" category.
Do others on here find the chord scale theory approach is detrimental to many guitar players learning jazz?
My opinion: YES.
Not just guitar, piano too. Probably the only place it isn't detrimental is with drummers :-)
If you find your jazz standard in people like Charlie Christian, Charlie Parker, Thelonious Monk, ...
7
Look into Arabic pop music (ie: Najwa Karam, Amr Diab, Fairouz, Nancy Ajram) and classical music (Umm Kulthum). I would not bother with "modern composer" explorations into 24tone; because that stuff is almost completely academic music that nobody actually listens to in the real world.
But, Arab music (Maqam) is exactly what you describe; and there is a ...
7
The speed you should be doing them at is the speed at which you can do them accurately and evenly. Once you get comfortable doing them at that speed, notch it up a bit - never going faster than you can handle. Don't just practise the ones that you are good at and know well. Spare time and energy to get the trickier ones just as good.
There is no rule ...
6
Scales are great exercises and warm-up material. They help get fingers flexing, and also help one understand which notes go together diatonically, but that will depend on which scales one plays.
As far as speed is concerned, it is as important to be able to play them slowly and in time as it is to play them fast, albeit accurately. If it's for exam purposes,...
6
The approach of matching a scale to a chord is useful but should never be the main focus of understanding changes. The opposite or inverse approach is to see how chords fit into a single scale. For example, there are 7 7th chords that are build on the major scale and these can be used to create the "circle progression",
I --> IV --> vii --> iii --> vi -->...
6
What you're describing already exists. It is known as the Circle of 5ths (or 4ths if you go the other way). The regular diatonic major scale (Ionian) is symmetrical. Repeating symmetry; two identical tetrachords separated by a whole step between (w-w-h-w-w-w-h). Not "asymmetric chunks." Once you realize this and learn to think of scales this way, you will ...
6
I see some songs written in the key of C and some in Ab and some in Bb and so on and so forth.
But why not use C for all?
The most obvious reasons to choose a different root note for the key are to get the piece into a range where:
it sounds good sung by a certain voice
it sounds good played on a certain instrument ('no pitch alone has any inherent ...
5
Two composers who have worked with 24-tone equal temperament are Charles Ives (Three Quarter-Tone Pieces) and Ivan Wyschnegradsky (24 Preludes for Two Quarter-Tone Pianos). Wyschnegradsky has also apparently written Manual of Quarter Tone Harmony. He also used other divisions of the octave.
If you want to learn about non-12 divisions of the octave in ...
5
As far as songs that are sung are concerned, it's not the key that takes priority, it's the range and sometimes the tessitura. There will always be a problem with songs that have a big range - the difference between the lowest and higest notes. For some singers, the highest note is just too high to sing well. At that point, the highest note needs to be ...
5
In addition to NickGroove's outstanding answer, this technique is used in jazz to "go out" (depart from the written chords) when improvising. Consider this pattern:
C-D-E- F-G-A- B♭-C-D- E♭-F-G- A♭-B♭-C- ...
When "going out," it's more common to hear a pattern move around the circle of 4ths than around the circle of 5ths. Sequencing a 3-note scalar ...
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The page itself tries to explain it. Quote with emphasis:
Double-flats and double-sharps are often used as accidentals but
placing them in the key signature makes the music generally very hard
to read. The Scales who use double-flats in the key signature (Db
Minor, Gb Minor, Ab Minor) are just Theoretical Scales.
Such key signatures could ...
4
As other answers point out, E# minor exists in theory, but is in used vanishingly rarely (if ever) in practice. But this provokes the followup question: if E# minor so rare as to be “purely theoretical”, why is G# major (with the same key signature) less rare in practice?
In isolation, G# major is just as impractical: for the primary key of a work, one ...
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You are probably going much too fast, as a beginner.
We don't know what standard you are at after your "unsuccessful tries", but the ABRSM exam syllabus gives speeds for the different grades. If we convert them into 16th note scales (they are given in the syllabus for 8th-note scales) they are:
Grade 1 - 30BPM. 2 - 33. 3 - 40. 4 - 52. 5 - 63. 6 - 76. 7 - ...
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It is clear that this progression is modulating to Fm, the IV of Cm. Although the G7 is the V7 of Cm, indicating C harmonic or melodic minor I think it is clear that you will hear the change to C maj leading from G7. Now, the C is the V of Fm, and you could pass through C7 on your way there. The point is that one option is to play F harmonic minor ...
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It's funny how this question resonates with me, and how it applies to blues, not just to jazz. I've been struggling to improvise over a 12-bar blues progression for years, and only recently I've started to break through.
Like you, I find that there's a lot of inefficient teaching around.
I was first told to use the 'blues scale' (minor pentatonic with an ...
3
...because the contrasting of key/tonalities has expressive effect!.
Playing something like theme #1 in C major and then theme #2 in A flat major is not at all the same as playing both themes in the same key.
The relative relations of tones do define a theme on a self contained level. Meaning on theme from many can be isolated an appreciated from its ...
3
Yes - I've written in various tunings. Live performances are elusive though, as the musicians can't tell if they're hitting the right notes!
I did write something for two sopranos and a piano where one of the singers had the 'in-tune' accompaniment in her cans and the other an 'out-of-tune' accompaniment. Crucially neither singer could hear the other! The ...
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Yes, it is called microtonal music. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microtonal_music
Though in practice I don’t think anyone really uses all possible notes. A lot of the ”usual 12 notes” music uses only a subset of the 12 pitches. And then again e.g. violin and wind instrument players and singers produce pitches that are not exactly on the equal-temperament ...
answered Dec 31 '19 at 11:37
piiperi Reinstate Monica
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Rather than complete scales, chord tones are more important, so it's around half of scales!
Reading some ideas - 'It's in key C, so C Ionian for that, Dm bar uses D Dorian, G bar uses G Mixolydian etc makes no sense to me. That's all using the same set of 7 notes, all that changes is the root. Which is pretty apparent from the name of the chord in the bar.
...
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If the chord-scale theory leads you to selecting a mode for every chord change and playing random notes from that mode's scale, without considering what the played notes do in terms of chordal harmony around a tonic, then the theory is harmful for you. Music is not random. Harmony is not random. If you play random notes, you get random harmony, and I'd say, ...
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The trick is to use 2, 3, and 4 on the G♭–A♭–B♭ stretch in the first half of the scale; otherwise you'll use a thumb, pinky, or have to oddly cross over during that stretch of black keys, none of which are ideal.
R: 3 1 2 3 4 1 2 3
L: 2 1 4 3 2 1 3 2
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If the dissertation in question is the one linked to in guest's answer, "equal-interval" is the general term here, referring to structures that divide the octave equally. This tends to be especially applied to division of the octave into major thirds or minor thirds. (Equal division into seconds also produces both the standard chromatic scale, as well as ...
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Obviously the scale is not all equal steps. It's a combination of whole and half steps.
You need to look at some other interval relationship between tones beside step by step intervals.
You can generate an octatonic scale by superimposing two diminished seventh chords each of which is composed of equally spaced minor thirds.
Ex. take a B diminished ...
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I guess you are referring to this PhD thesis: https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/handle/2027.42/63739. Certainly the phrase "equal interval chromatic" occurs twice in the abstract, and once adjacent to the word "octatonic".
Anyone who can make sense of the word salad in the summary is welcome to post an explanation - e.g.
I show that different harmonic ...
2
Skimming through the existing replies, I'd also like to add that practising scales induce Discipline as a pianist. Especially true if you want to be a professional pianist or classical pianist (hobby or professional).
Practising scales help with lots of other small things such as techniques, music theory, sight-read so on and so forth. But to be good at ...
2
One of the biggest reasons that songs occur in different keys has to do with the instrument playing them or the instrument they were written on.
One very important one is the voice. Singers generally have a specific range that is strong for them and they will sound best singing in that range. Depending on the type of singer, high notes are important for ...
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At https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theoretical_key
the key you're looking for IS mentioned. 6 doubles plus 1 adds up to 13 flats. It's in the list.
You could also have worked this out from first principles. C major has no flats (or sharps). C♭ major therefore has ALL the flats, 7 of them. Similarly, G♭ major has 6 flats. G♭♭ major ...
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I don’t believe that there are B-recorders. Your recorder is certainly down tuned almost a semitone about 435 or 430. So you think it is tuned in B. Try to push the mouth piece with the rest of the flute.
If you want to play together with other Baroque instruments (recorders or harpsichord) you can just play the C scale as doremi, as they all have lower ...
1
I wouldn't call that a key change, unless the C major chord is held for half a minute or something. :) It's simply a temporary scale or mode change, "borrowing" a V-I (or V-i) motion from F minor. In the key of F minor, the dominant-tonic chord combination is C7 - Fm. You can expand on that idea by playing a Bbm or Bbm6 chord on top of the C major - that's ...
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