Suggestions for simple melodies / riffs for 12-key practice
Prof Wonmug
scales. Useful, but boring. Not much fun to practice. To mke it a
little more interesting, I tried varing the sequence: around the
circle of fifths forward (C-F-Bb...) and backward (C-G-D...), up and
down chromatically (C-Dd-D...), up and down a full step (C-D-E...),
and so on. I've also added modulation chords to make it somewhat more
"musical".
Then I hit on the idea of playing simple melodies in each key. I
started with 1-chord rounds (Frere Jacques, Three Blind Mice). I can
play those two in all 12 keys fairly well using the same sequences as
above.
I am currently working on Chopsticks. It is good because it is a lot
like a scale. I have it working in 5-6 keys.
I am wondering where I might find other short melodies or riffs of
graduated complexity that would be fun to play.
Thanks
PS: Sorry for cross-posting. I wasn't sure which group would be more
appropriate.
Jean-David Beyer
force my self to do them. Finger exercises.
Much better are those by Carl Czerny. Some are quite difficult, but the ones
in his Opus 599 vary in difficulty. They are musical. I suppose you could
play them in different keys if you like, but they are designed, among other
things, to build up the muscles in your fingers, and playing them in other
keys might not be in their intent. I suppose playing something written in C
major in F major would not be much of a concern, though. Here is a Wikipedia
biography of him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Czerny
And here is a young student playing one of his etudes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkpmAfSZUNU&feature=related
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LJS
try using the ii7-V7-I pattern using the scale of the "I" and then
make the "I" minor and that becomes the new ii7 and the pattern
repeats to cover 6 of the keys and then you jump a diminished 5th and
you pick up the other 6 keys. This brings you more into the usefull
aspects of the scales and their application to the extremely prominant
251 jazz patterns and since you are thinking melodically over this
progression and in 3 to 4 bar phrases you can explore the scales in a
more melodic setting.
With a little modification, you can do the minor scales in this manner
as well. I have used it with HS students in jazz classes and it works
really well and is only a boring as the performer as you are
completely free to explore more melodic patterns as well as free
improvisation in the keys.
Enjoy.
LJS
Prof Wonmug
wrote:
That's a great suggestion, thanks. I don't suppose you would be
interested in posting a few simple 4-bar riffs with a few simple
accompaniments, would you? ;-)
I have a vision of an alternative to Hanon or Czerny. These would be a
start. I was thinking of going through my Czerny books looking for
short 3-4 bar sequences that I could repeat in the manner you
describe.
I'll play around with it.
LJS
> On Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:30:42 -0700 (PDT), LJS <ljsche...@gmail.com>
>
> - Show quoted text -
lol, that would defeat the purpose of improvisation! The point is to
use the progression to practice improvisation in the various keys. You
can however, do one of two things. (maybe many more things!!) You can
take the "riffs" that you know that will fit into the progression and
run them through the cycles or you can modify the progression to fit
your riffs. For this particular progression, you can find riffs in any
fake book. Almost any jazz standard will have many examples of the 251
progression so this is most suited for learning to free up one's
thinking in different keys and in the jazz setting, this exercise not
only frees you up on the keys, but it is in the same basic context of
(just a rough guess) 75% or more of the harmonic progressions used in
jazz.
The idea is to learn to hear what you play and then to play what you
hear. The 251 project is thus directly applicable to the jazz idiom
and is of particular pragmatic in its use. But for the accompaniment,
well, what is wrong with self accompaniment? You are training your ear
so start with just outlining the chords melodically. Then as you learn
to hear the progression you add more passing tones, change shapes and
basically just learn what it all sounds like and let your inner ear
guide you.
I have had success with students just outling the chords at first and
then they come to realize that all three chords are included in the
same scale. By that time, they have the harmonic sound in their head
on their own instrument, they are hearing the progression and then the
connection to the scales is a natural step.
Once your ear and your playing are synchronized, it is like movabale
DO and you just "hear" it all as you play it, or play it as you hear
it in your head. At that point, you are not thinking notes any more,
you are just thinking sounds and you are "singing" on your
instrument.
Once you get into the swing of this, you don't even realize that you
are modulating. And you don't have to keep to the strict rhythmic
patterns. You can stay on any one of the chords for as long a time or
as brief a time as you like. There are no rules. It is a cyclical
"vamp" that cycles through half of the 12 keys. In application, they
will not come in the same order as the exercise, but you will be
hearing enough so that you can start on any minor chord and continue
through the cadence and then go to the next cycle in the particular
tune that you are playing.
I hope that this helps to put it in perspective, but if not, don't
hesitate to ask for more clarification or help with your specific
applications, but for that, you may have to wait a few weeks. I am
currently in Slovania and will still be around here, Croatia and Italy
for a couple of weeks and will not have time or the notational tools
to do any specific examples.
Talk later,
LJS
Gary Rimar
This suggestion is probably a bit advanced for you now, but what I did
to teach myself to bulletproof transpose is I started playing my own
improv of the piece "Sunny" in A minor, and then took the half-step
transpositions, and kept playing it until I was in A minor again.
Very good exercise.
Gary Rimar
Prof Wonmug
Yes, that is too advanced for me at the moment. I have tried it with
other songs and got stuck.
I am able to play simple 1-chord melodies with simple accompaniments
in all 12 keys.
Next, I want to try some 3-chord (I, IV, V7) songs and I'm working on
LJS' suggestion of the 251 progression.
I'd like to build up a series of melodic exercises starting with my
simple melodies and working up to complete songs like Sunny.
EdV
>
> - Show quoted text -
Playing "Mack the Knife" through all 12 keys is a jazz band
tradition. I knocked it down to four chords C Dm G Am in C (relative
Am) sounds ok.
laraine
> I am trying to become fluent in all 12 keys. I started by learning the
> scales. Useful, but boring. Not much fun to practice. To mke it a
> little more interesting, I tried varing the sequence: around the
> circle of fifths forward (C-F-Bb...) and backward (C-G-D...), up and
> down chromatically (C-Dd-D...), up and down a full step (C-D-E...),
> and so on. I've also added modulation chords to make it somewhat more
> "musical".
Well, I have yet to learn to enjoy scales as much
as you do, but I try to focus on scales and
arpeggios that relate to a particular piece that
I'm working on.
For exercises, you can change the
rhythm too, or play in contrary motion
(opposite directions for right and left hands).
I had a piano teacher who used to
make up her own exercises as well.
>
> Then I hit on the idea of playing simple melodies in each key. I
> started with 1-chord rounds (Frere Jacques, Three Blind Mice). I can
> play those two in all 12 keys fairly well using the same sequences as
> above.
>
> I am currently working on Chopsticks. It is good because it is a lot
> like a scale. I have it working in 5-6 keys.
Transposition does seem like a way to learn
a lot about other keys, but I think it's more
fun just to play pieces written in different
keys. I notice, though, that the organist at
church is often asked to transpose, so I
suppose it could be a useful skill to learn.
(Not sure if there's a transpose button on
the organ.)
C.
Prof Wonmug
wrote:
That's a great idea. "Beyond the Sea" would be another one that fairly
simple and it often performed in shifting keys. Another that comes to
mind is "Lemon Tree". Hey, this will be fun. :-)
LJS
> On Tue, 23 Jun 2009 09:58:48 -0700 (PDT), EdV <edvoge...@gmail.com>
>
> - Show quoted text -
Sorry to jump in but remember that the key to the whole thing is to
learn the all the keys! Period!
I mean to learn them as fluently as you know Cmajor. The other key is
to then have a good sense of SolFa and movable Do. Just like when you
sing, you need to NOT be concerned with technique and fingerings. You
have to hear the tune and just play it.
Another approach is the 12 day plan. Take a different key signature
every day and just play everything you know in that key. Learn to
think in the different keys by sound.
Someone mentionede thinking of transposing. While this may fit some
learning styles, I don't like this method as you are cluttering up
your mind with the PROCESS of transposing. Unless you have perfect
pitch and you learn the songs in one key only, just about any song
that you can remember by sound is inside of you and you don't need to
clutter you mind with the additional process of transposing (where you
are usually visualizing the song as you know it and then thinking
about the new key and the notes and accidentals etc. Once you get down
to playing by ear (that is the beauty of the 251 cycle) you will be
surprised that it is a lot easier than you think it might be.
Good luck.
LJS
Prof Wonmug
wrote:
>On Jun 23, 8:48�pm, Prof Wonmug <won...@e.mcc> wrote:
Well, I sure hope you are right, because it is damned hard right now.
But maybe I am doing too much of that transposing you mentioned.
It reminds me of learning a second language. I lived overseas for a
couple of years many years ago. When I was first learning the new
language, I was thinking in English and translating each word into the
other language, thinking about tense, person, syntax, etc. Gradually,
I started being able to translate the thought, not the the individual
words.
Then one day, I suddenly realized that I was not translating anymore.
I was actually thinking in a different language. That was an amazing
epiphany. When I came back, I brought a family from the other country
back here for a visit. They spoke almost no English, so I was
translating for them. On many occasions, I would find myself getting
it backwards. I would be speaking English to the visitors and the
other language to my American friends. I realized that I didn't really
have the languages partitioned in my mind. I just thought and words
came out. I even found myself using phrases from one langauge mixed in
with the other.
Anyway, long digression. I think you have a good point about living in
a key for a time (maybe more than a day for me) rather than
transposing. Maybe I'll have another epiphany if I live long enough.
;-)
Jean-David Beyer
> Someone mentionede thinking of transposing. While this may fit some
> learning styles, I don't like this method as you are cluttering up your
> mind with the PROCESS of transposing. Unless you have perfect pitch and
> you learn the songs in one key only, just about any song that you can
> remember by sound is inside of you and you don't need to clutter you mind
> with the additional process of transposing (where you are usually
> visualizing the song as you know it and then thinking about the new key
> and the notes and accidentals etc. Once you get down to playing by ear
> (that is the beauty of the 251 cycle) you will be surprised that it is a
> lot easier than you think it might be.
>
I am by no means an expert at this, but I think I agree with you on this.
It seems to me there are two ways to accomplish the same thing, and that one
is better than the other. One way is to learn to play in every key. That is
12 or 24 depending on how you look at it. Learn 12 or 24 skills.
The other is to learn to play in any key. That is one skill, more difficult,
I suppose, than learning to play in one key, but surely less than learning
to play in 12 or 24. The difference, it seems to me, is just the non-step of
leaving out the transposing.
I had a teacher 50 years ago who was organist at a local church. He started
playing something during a service and realized he started in the wrong key.
Since the choir and possibly the congregation had already begun, he could
not sneak in a modulation to the correct key, so he had to continue in
whatever key he started with. Luckily he was a professional and could do
this with no trouble. He did not transpose, he just played it in the key he
started with. He wanted me to learn the same skill. Unfortunately I had to
quit about that time due to increasing amounts of homework (in college at
the time), so I did not attain that skill.
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LJS
> On Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:35:39 -0700 (PDT), LJS <ljsche...@gmail.com>
lol Most likely. If you are "thinking" abouit it, you are doing too
many things at the same time.
> It reminds me of learning a second language. I lived overseas for a
> couple of years many years ago. When I was first learning the new
> language, I was thinking in English and translating each word into the
> other language, thinking about tense, person, syntax, etc. Gradually,
> I started being able to translate the thought, not the the individual
> words.
Now you are talking! Its the same thing. Translation and transposition
are crutches that may get you through reading a book, but to talk
fluently to someone on the street, you have to think the language. The
language is SolFa the keys are kinda like the language or dialect and
if you can "hear" the music with your fingers as well as in your head,
you are fluent. If you can pick out melodies in Cmaj, and you can
think SolFa (even if you don't really call it the same thing, I mean
the tonal relations that allow you to select the right notes in Cmaj)
then in order to play in all the keys you only need to have your
fingers learn the other keys.
>
> Then one day, I suddenly realized that I was not translating anymore.
> I was actually thinking in a different language. That was an amazing
> epiphany. When I came back, I brought a family from the other country
> back here for a visit. They spoke almost no English, so I was
> translating for them. On many occasions, I would find myself getting
> it backwards. I would be speaking English to the visitors and the
> other language to my American friends. I realized that I didn't really
> have the languages partitioned in my mind. I just thought and words
> came out. I even found myself using phrases from one langauge mixed in
> with the other.
It sounds like your learning style will allow you to work well with
what I have said.
>
> Anyway, long digression. I think you have a good point about living in
> a key for a time (maybe more than a day for me) rather than
> transposing. Maybe I'll have another epiphany if I live long enough.
> ;-)- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
Don't spend too long on one key. Start with your most fluent key and
play everything that you know in that key. Play by sound. Play ONLY by
sound. Just think the sound in your head and listen and modify what
you play to coincide with what you are thinking. Do this for at least
2 to 4 or more hours and then the next day go to another key and
repeat the processl. Learn the "hello. How are you, I am fine thank
you" easy stuff first and take it through all the keys. Do not try to
tramspose The Rites of Spring today and then repeat it tomorrow up a
half step. start with Mary Had a Little Lamb or When the Saints go
marching in and things easy and tonal. You will be building skills
using simple "words" but most important, you will be learning the
process of connecting your ear to the music and to your instrument.
I think that if you start with easy children songs, you can handle
being fluent with these after a few hours of work! In the beginning,
you are not trying to learn concert pieces. You are just looking to
learn " baby talk". Personally I would recommend that you start with
Pentatonic based folk and childern's songs. There are lots of reasons
for this but I don't have time to go into all of them right now. One
of the reasons is that they are easy and they are usually short and
they will be solidifying your SolFa concepts with all the important
notes in the scales.
By SolFa, I do not mean that you have to use Do Re Mi Fa Sol when you
play (although it will have some advantages if you do) but just by
playing by ear you will be using the same brain pathways as if you are
using SolFa and that is to connect the sound to some physical hook. If
you don't use the syllables, your brain will make its own hooks and if
needed, you can learn SolFa later. Usually, your fingers, by learning
the keys, will be the hook, but this could be affected by your own
individual structure of thinking.
In any case. after you go through the keys, Then on the second time
around you will have a base to work from and you can increase the
complexity of the songs you attempt to play by sound in the various
keys.
LJS
LJS
That is exactly correct.and the problem with transpositon is that the
organist would most likely either stumble through if he had to
"transpose" but because he was a professional, he could play in any
key and since he knew the tune, he could play it in any key that he
could play in.
I had a band director that had what would be described as "perfect
relative pitch". In practice, he did exactly as I have described and
could of course play anything that he knew in any key. BUT when
conducting, he had a different twist. As he grew up, he was trained to
read in ALL the clefs. ALL the clefs and he simply lookes at the score
and by reading them in the appropriate cleff, he was looking at all
the transposed parts as if they were in the same key but only in
different clefs. Like a pianist reading the Bass and Treble
symultaneously, he only used more clefs!
For him, the clefs were a "hook" that allowed him to read scores with
less thinking. I would not recommend this as a general rule, but he
was raised in a musical family and learned them from the beginning in
this manner. He also finished graduate school at Julliard when he was
either 15 or 17 (I don't remember which) and he was an inner circle
member of MENSA. I am not that ambitious or naturally talented in that
manner but for him, it was a natural thing to do.
The key point is to do a little "thinking" as possible. Transpositon
is a visual and academic tool that adds several steps to the process.
You have to 1) read the music as written 2) think about the interval
of transposition 3) think about the fingering of that new note, 4)
finaly play the notes and do the same thing for each and every note.
That is a lot of steps to play Twinkle Twinkle and I may be skipping
several steps anyway.
If you learn the keys as described, you 1) look at the music and hear
it 2) play what you hear in what ever key you are in. FInished!
If you are playing something you already know by sound (and this is a
skill that can be learned and improved) you have only one step and
that is to play it in what ever key is handy.
To me, the latter is simply much simpler. I have also found that the
better you are at this, the better you are at sight reading and this
allows more brain bandwidth to be free for use with interpretation and
nuances even when sight reading.
LJS
Prof Wonmug
wrote:
This looks to be a great suggestion. Since I read this, I have been
trying to spend more time in each key. Previously, I would take one
piece and try to make it through all 12 keys -- just staying in that
key until the piece was passable.
Now, I pick a key and play as many different pieces as I can. I am
finding that this "fixes" that key in my mind much better.
I have started by alternating between G & F. I stay in G for a whole
practice session. Then do F the next time. After just a few days, I am
much more comfortable in G & F than I had ever been before. G,
especially, is starting to feel like C has. F is a little less solid,
but getting there.
Next I'll add D, then Bb, then A, then Eb, etc. I predict that being
much more solid with G will make learning D much easier -- kinda like
going from C to G.
Anyway, thanks for the suggestion. I like this "serial" approach much
better. I think my "parallel" approach would have worked eventually
and may even have some advantages, but the early progress would have
been much slower and more frustrating. Your approach produces visible
results much more quickly.
Thanks
LJS
> On Tue, 23 Jun 2009 21:35:39 -0700 (PDT), LJS <ljsche...@gmail.com>
This is exactly what it is supposed. to do. You are actually building
the "technique" of playing in each kiey.
>
> I have started by alternating between G & F. I stay in G for a whole
> practice session. Then do F the next time. After just a few days, I am
> much more comfortable in G & F than I had ever been before. G,
> especially, is starting to feel like C has. F is a little less solid,
> but getting there.
>
> Next I'll add D, then Bb, then A, then Eb, etc. I predict that being
> much more solid with G will make learning D much easier -- kinda like
> going from C to G.
This is where your individuality comes in and you match your learning
style to this approach. ANY order will work fo the keys studied. There
is no definitie approach for this aspect that I know of. What ever
works for you will be the best approachy. IF you wantm, you can only
work on the most likiely keys used in a particular idiom. i.e. in
traditional jazz music you will rarely play in Emaj A maj etc so you
worlk on the flat keys more and on guitar maybe the sharp keys more.
The point is that if you do not know the key, then you will not be
able to play in it.
>
> Anyway, thanks for the suggestion. I like this "serial" approach much
> better. I think my "parallel" approach would have worked eventually
> and may even have some advantages, but the early progress would have
> been much slower and more frustrating. Your approach produces visible
> results much more quickly.
>
> Thanks-
Glad to be of assistance.
LJS