Thank you for putting this on here Dr. Young. I am one of your former students at WSU and I am currently teaching High School band in Kansas and I always have all my students use this technique when practicing scales. It really works! Thanks for all you do in the World of music and I hope all is well in your life. Thanks for all of your help at Wichita State.
Caleb!! Great to hear from you! I am glad that this has been of some help to you with your students! I hope at some point our paths will cross! If I am ever in Kansas I would love to stop by to work with your students!
Dear Robert Young. I really appreciate your teaching, because your videos always point my attention to training issues that I instantly understand are meaningful and helpful. I have a question though, stemming from the fact that all your videos seem to advocate lots of self discipline. I am self taught (or youtube-taught) and I used to fight the daily exercises of scales, due to boredom. I have often heard remarks like "scales and long tones are boring but you have to practice them anyway". So I spent many hours of concentrated boredom working through the 12 keys, whipping myself to get started every time. Until one day I found out that boredom is indeed a helpful feeling when used right. The feeling of boredom is a signal from the subconscious brain to the conscient part that the brain is bored and consequently it is turning off focus, which means that the ability to remember decreases. If one continues to work on with strong determination while bored, the subconscious brain will remember the situation negatively and find evasions every time you force yourself to repeat the work. Every schoolboy and -girl in the world know that feeling. And they are mostly told that this feeling is wrong. Bad. But this is a fight against nature, like trying to force the water in a waterfall to go back upstream. Instead one have to embrace the feeling af boredom and be attentious to it. Boredom is a natural indication that tells you precisely when to create a variation to the exercise. A variation (or a new angle of attack) large enough to make the work interesting again. For instance work the scale backwards or from the middle, or skib every other tone in the scale. Anything that changes the approach. I have tried this method and the results are good - for me. But I expect it to be good for anyone. It means that I now narrow down happily on every weak spot in my playing and focus on it in smaller and smaller increments and repeat them until my fingers become sore. Then I move on. The improvement is noticeable after one nights sleep (the neurological adaptation works during sleep). So my question to you is: What do you teach your students in order to overcome the inevitable feeling of boredom? Anyway, I find your suggestion of rhythm changes and training priority in order to accommodate the brains needs very helpful. If anyone feels bored after some of this training, here is an old song to play (as a training variation of the technique). It was written by the Danish composer Carl Nielsen a long time ago: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TP4H9oKsmvE.html
Playing patterns with altered rhythms is the best approach I know of for learning technical passages. Your fourth rhythm is one of my favorites! (I use the others as well.) I also like to do groups of two, three, and five. Your 2/3 idea is very interesting -- I'll have to give it a try. I take it the idea of doing fewer reps at higher speeds is to force one to be able to nail the passage more readily? On a more mundane topic... I see you have one of those weights attached to your bell brace. What is the concept behind those, and do you recommend them? Also, it looks like you're using an Ishimori lig, which seems to have become quite popular. What do you like about it? Thanks in advance!
Thank you for the great videos! Just wondering if you prefer the front/fork fingerings for E and F at faster tempos? I’ve always gravitated towards the palm keys unless I’m going into the altissimo register. Look forward to your response. Thanks Chris
Thank you for the lesson and exercise. I’ve learn so much from your channel. Question: what is the purpose of the tape on your neck near the octave vent. Also what brand is your neck strap. Thank you once again.
Thank you for your note. You can hear about the nylon around my neck in my video "A-Fuzz". I use it at times to diffuse some of the air coming out of my octave vent.
I am learning the bamboo flute. My problem is I get a lot of white noise..ie hiss and airy sound. I know you are a sax player,, can you please tell me what you do to get a clean well rounded tone..
Look up singing videos honestly on how to breathe, and that will help that.. if it's not that it's just your mouth isn't right, but I'm sure that's not it... So breathe long and proper
Thank you very much for you excellent instruction! Would you mind explaining why it is beneficial to repeat phrases at the goal tempo less often than at the slower 'base' tempo? It seems a little counter-intuitive to me. Is it to reinforce the great precision of movement enable by slower playing? Much appreciated!
Hello, exactly. It reinforces the precision. Also, especially with very fast tempi, it helps with reinforcing a sense of relaxation while playing. Many technique issues arrives from just being too tense while playing. Many times there is less tension while playing slowly.
