A quick tip: Learn the Circle of Fifths. Just memorize the order of flats or the order of sharps; they're just opposite order of each other. Once you do this you'll know all 12 scales their relative minors, their diatonic chords, and much, much more! You'll be able to practice them without looking at sheet music so when you're stuck... I mean playing with a singer and/or guitar player and they want to transpose up to a sharp key you'll be able to do it in less than a second when you think of the Circle of Fifths.
Thank you for the tip, I need help on my trombone lol I am going to be in my school jazz band and I don’t even Know a lot. I only know the b flat scale and I am scared and my school starts on July 28, help lol
For any major or minor scale it also helps to know the whole step and half step formula. So no matter what note you start with, if W=whole step and H=half step, your sequence for a major scale from your root will be W, W, H, W, W, W, H. And likewise minor will be W, H, W, W, H, W, W. It isn’t this cut and dry on valved brass instruments like it is on strings or piano, but the trombone is an exception. As long as you know all of your partials in the chromatic scale you can apply that formula to the trombone fairly easily. Unless you play a valve trombone lol
@@vittorioargento3514 G to G# is a half step and G to A is a whole step. So the Gmaj scale, for example, by the whole/half step formula above would be G, A, B, C, D, E, F#, G. If you played a chromatic scale, each note would be a half step. For example on a guitar, each fret is a half step. So going from fret #1 to fret #2 is a half step ascent, and going from fret #1 to fret #3 is a whole step ascent.
@@vittorioargento3514 ah I see. No problem! Time is the essence of learning every instrument. Be patient and put in the time and you’ll be exactly where you want to be before you know it!
I play drums, piano, bass, and guitar. I am decently average at all of them. Not great, just average. I recently got into jazz and wanted to try some wind instruments. I thought, hey, I'm fairly musical, trumpet and trombone should be ok ...... wow, a few TH-cam videos into research, trombone seems like the hardest instrument I have ever seen 😂 Respect to anyone who can play this.
The biggest mistake band teachers make in grade school is forcing us to learn the key of Bb first and to memorize numeric slide positions while reading a written scale in a book.
Should Professional Trombone players also memorize all natural minor, harmonic minor and melodic minor scales by heart or only the Majors keys ? I know you need to play them all but should they all be memorized and played by heart ? Thank you and Great Video.
Where is your video in which Joe A tried to call you? I want to send it to my son. That was pretty funny. Also, I hope you leave the comments set to on. Your approach stimulates a lot of creative practicing ideas which need to be shared.
Hey Shawn, another Shawn here. I’ve grown to play my scales by using the scale patters and also solfedge. I don’t necessarily get the muscle memory down, but I can reliably get the notes for major, minor, harmonic minor, melodic, and all the other modes as well. Do you think this is a bad habit? I can comfortably play all my scales without memorizing anything or really think at all. I just don’t build actual muscle memory. Thanks!
FYI Of course I practiced my whole tone scales/chromatic scale to really get the needed intervals down and convert the solfedge to trombone effortlessly.
Hey Shawn, I think what you are talking about is the difference between "knowing" the information and being able to draw on that knowledge to improve your playing in a musical context. The example I would use would be if you see a fast or technically challenging scale passage in the music you are working on. Do you approach that passage as a bunch of individual notes or as a chunk of a scale? This is where your question of muscle memory comes in. If you can approach these types of passages as chunks of scales/arpeggios/whatever, it can make playing them easier if you have invested practice time in those concepts outside of the context of the music. You can draw upon the time you have invested in practicing scales and say to yourself "this passage is just a C major scale". The technique will hopefully already be there. If you feel like improving this connection would improve your playing, I would look for ways to practice in this way. Find a technical passage in your music that is scalar in nature. Identify what scale or pattern it is, and then move that scale/pattern through some different keys. All 12 keys is often best, but how many keys you do is up to how much time you want to spend on it. It sounds like you are "on the path" so to speak but just need to vary your practice a bit to make the scale information you know work for you in a musical context.
what i did was that i learned every scale one by one then made myself repeat them over and over again until i just knew them off the top of my head
A quick tip: Learn the Circle of Fifths. Just memorize the order of flats or the order of sharps; they're just opposite order of each other. Once you do this you'll know all 12 scales their relative minors, their diatonic chords, and much, much more! You'll be able to practice them without looking at sheet music so when you're stuck... I mean playing with a singer and/or guitar player and they want to transpose up to a sharp key you'll be able to do it in less than a second when you think of the Circle of Fifths.
Thank you for the tip, I need help on my trombone lol I am going to be in my school jazz band and I don’t even Know a lot. I only know the b flat scale and I am scared and my school starts on July 28, help lol
@@omarjahla6899 practice makes perfect! Hopefully you have made a lot of progress over the last year!
@@omarjahla6899so how did it go ?
@@piggdsbest333 it went surprisingly well haha, thanks for asking
Memorizing my scales is so difficult for me yet I can play regular songs 😞
this was really helpful, thank you
For any major or minor scale it also helps to know the whole step and half step formula. So no matter what note you start with, if W=whole step and H=half step, your sequence for a major scale from your root will be W, W, H, W, W, W, H. And likewise minor will be W, H, W, W, H, W, W. It isn’t this cut and dry on valved brass instruments like it is on strings or piano, but the trombone is an exception. As long as you know all of your partials in the chromatic scale you can apply that formula to the trombone fairly easily. Unless you play a valve trombone lol
Hi, what do you mean with "whole" and "half" step? Thanks. Vittorio
@@vittorioargento3514 G to G# is a half step and G to A is a whole step. So the Gmaj scale, for example, by the whole/half step formula above would be G, A, B, C, D, E, F#, G. If you played a chromatic scale, each note would be a half step. For example on a guitar, each fret is a half step. So going from fret #1 to fret #2 is a half step ascent, and going from fret #1 to fret #3 is a whole step ascent.
@@norandavis856 Thanks, it was only a problem of nomenclature and translation. It's OK. And thanks for your help to a very beginner....
@@vittorioargento3514 ah I see. No problem! Time is the essence of learning every instrument. Be patient and put in the time and you’ll be exactly where you want to be before you know it!
@@vittorioargento3514 is it the trombone that you are learning?
I play drums, piano, bass, and guitar. I am decently average at all of them. Not great, just average. I recently got into jazz and wanted to try some wind instruments. I thought, hey, I'm fairly musical, trumpet and trombone should be ok ...... wow, a few TH-cam videos into research, trombone seems like the hardest instrument I have ever seen 😂 Respect to anyone who can play this.
It has a steep learning curve for sure, but once you get past that initial hump, it get's easier. Keep at it.
The biggest mistake band teachers make in grade school is forcing us to learn the key of Bb first and to memorize numeric slide positions while reading a written scale in a book.
Should Professional Trombone players also memorize all natural minor, harmonic minor and melodic minor scales by heart or only the Majors keys ? I know you need to play them all but should they all be memorized and played by heart ? Thank you and Great Video.
😊
Where is your video in which Joe A tried to call you? I want to send it to my son. That was pretty funny. Also, I hope you leave the comments set to on. Your approach stimulates a lot of creative practicing ideas which need to be shared.
That video is at the link below.
th-cam.com/video/73hw0JvfLb8/w-d-xo.html . Glad to hear you enjoy the channel
@@ShawnBellMusic Thank you. I will send it to him. He enjoys a good joke as well as high level pedagogy.
Way to memorize is know your key signature
Hey Shawn, another Shawn here. I’ve grown to play my scales by using the scale patters and also solfedge. I don’t necessarily get the muscle memory down, but I can reliably get the notes for major, minor, harmonic minor, melodic, and all the other modes as well. Do you think this is a bad habit? I can comfortably play all my scales without memorizing anything or really think at all. I just don’t build actual muscle memory. Thanks!
FYI Of course I practiced my whole tone scales/chromatic scale to really get the needed intervals down and convert the solfedge to trombone effortlessly.
Hey Shawn, I think what you are talking about is the difference between "knowing" the information and being able to draw on that knowledge to improve your playing in a musical context. The example I would use would be if you see a fast or technically challenging scale passage in the music you are working on. Do you approach that passage as a bunch of individual notes or as a chunk of a scale? This is where your question of muscle memory comes in. If you can approach these types of passages as chunks of scales/arpeggios/whatever, it can make playing them easier if you have invested practice time in those concepts outside of the context of the music. You can draw upon the time you have invested in practicing scales and say to yourself "this passage is just a C major scale". The technique will hopefully already be there.
If you feel like improving this connection would improve your playing, I would look for ways to practice in this way. Find a technical passage in your music that is scalar in nature. Identify what scale or pattern it is, and then move that scale/pattern through some different keys. All 12 keys is often best, but how many keys you do is up to how much time you want to spend on it.
It sounds like you are "on the path" so to speak but just need to vary your practice a bit to make the scale information you know work for you in a musical context.
🙏
Man, too much talking.