Practice Routines

[Frank Blank]

Do any of you have routines/regimes for practicing scales/arpeggios etc? I’m looking to establish such a practice regime so I thought I’d see if anyone had any kind of system or routine for learning such things?

[paul_c2]

Not on the bass......all told, scales are actually quite boring so I don't do them, instead if I practice at home I will do a quick warm up then actually practice pieces (if there's stuff I need to work on) or sight reading if there isn't. My warm up is a daft little exercise where I basically do 1-3-2-4 on the E, then A, D G strings, then go up a fret and do it backwards (4-2-3-1 on G, D, A, E strings). I start on around 5th or 7th fret then gradually work down to 1st fret. I don't even plug the bass in, and if I do the volume is down (there is no value in hearing it - its to warm my fingers up). Then also I do "Subway" to warm up as something a bit more musical. But that's about it.

On the French Horn I'm much more disciplined on scales and stuff like that - a ton of scales, arpeggios, then lip slur stuff, then pieces I'm working on etc.

[Frank Blank]

1 minute ago, paul_c2 said:

Not on the bass......all told, scales are actually quite boring so I don't do them, instead if I practice at home I will do a quick warm up then actually practice pieces (if there's stuff I need to work on) or sight reading if there isn't. My warm up is a daft little exercise where I basically do 1-3-2-4 on the E, then A, D G strings, then go up a fret and do it backwards (4-2-3-1 on G, D, A, E strings). I start on around 5th or 7th fret then gradually work down to 1st fret. I don't even plug the bass in, and if I do the volume is down (there is no value in hearing it - its to warm my fingers up). Then also I do "Subway" to warm up as something a bit more musical. But that's about it.

On the French Horn I'm much more disciplined on scales and stuff like that - a ton of scales, arpeggios, then lip slur stuff, then pieces I'm working on etc.

I do very similar finger exercises as the one you mention. When it comes to the scales and arpeggios on the French horn do you work through them systematically or in a specific order?

[paul_c2]

No, I just choose some - unlike the bass, on the French Horn it actually takes a considerable skill/effort to play what you can play in one key, up a tone or so. So if I'm feeling good I'll just do higher and higher scales of the same; then if I'm flunking stuff I'll go lower.

Also its worth mentioning, although I don't expect many will "get" this - horn players don't necessarily think in actual proper pitch of notes. Instead of thinking "If I press the 2nd valve, I'll play B-D#-F#-B ie in B major, they'll think "I'll press the 2nd valve and go from horn in F to horn in E, then play C-E-G-C"; because historically (and its still true and still you come across it a lot in music) that's what the horn USED to do before it had valves, and the harmonics achieved that way aren't quite 12TET but in fact sound more natural, so you'd often strive to see the patterns and minimise valve fingering some of the time (and at other times, deliberately put in an alternate fingering to 'cheat' it and help with a difficult slur). Its hard, but worth achieving, situations where the lips and only the lips are doing the changes, not the fingers. So its what is practised.

Also it helps pitching in the keys you enter - pitching is an absolute beach on the French Horn and if you did it, as well as all the other technical issues it WILL DEFINITELY improve your ear training because if you don't, or can't develop good pitching on the horn you basically may as well not even bother trying to play it at all, it would sound so bad.