Getting Started

Page 4

Daily Push-ups on the Horn

It is very important that you establish a regular practice routine.  This routine should be carried out at least five days a week.  You should practice for a period of twenty to thirty minutes, at the minimum.  It is sometimes helpful to try and find a set time every day for this practice session.  It is much more beneficial to practice on a regular basis than to try and skip two or three days and try to make up for lost time by practicing for two hours once a week.  It has to do with muscle memory.  Your muscles (including the one between your ears) recall the actions they were called upon to perform less than twenty four hours ago.  When you do this every twenty four hours, the effect becomes  cumulative.  It's like building a house with a good, solid foundation.  If you have a solid foundation, then whatever you put on top is going to last.  So by practicing a little each day, you are "layering" these practice sessions on top of each other.  Pretty soon, you've got a good base on which to build. 

I would suggest your routine goes like this:

• Long Tones    Five minutes.  Start in the middle of the horn and work your way up and down.  See link for details.

• Scales and Arpeggios  Ten minutes.  A large percentage of all music can be boiled down to scales, pieces of scales, or patterns of scales.  Play them as musically as possible.  You play like what you practice like, or, as ye practice, so shall ye play.

• Pentatonic and Blues Scales   These scales are some of the most useful and versatile scales for all styles of improvisation.  They can be very simple or very complex, depending on the level of mastery.

• Method Books  Ten minutes.   Get a good method book.  Practice it religiously.  I tell my students that the most important thing that a good method book teaches you is how to play your horn correctly.  As a side benefit, it also teaches you how to read music.  A good method book is a good way to logically progress.  See the link for some suggestions.

• Tunes  Ten minutes.   Start playing tunes as soon as possible.  Anything that suits your fancy.  Jazz standards, movie themes, show tunes, whatever.  This is what it's all about, after all!  See link for partial list of tunes you should know.

• Fun Stuff   Ten minutes.   This is up to you.  Whatever it is you feel like doing, especially if you're not playing tunes yet.  Trying to play simple tunes by finding the notes on your horn, for example, is an excellent way to start working on your ear training.