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What Are You Practicing?
04 January 2010 - 04:44 PM
In a Jazz forum I frequent at they have a thread with the same title. I thought it would be a neat idea to do here since we all seem to be in different genres with different goals. So, just state what you're currently practicing. I think we post our daily regiment, as in, the things we practice every day and then the new things we're working on. And when that changes we can state the new thing we've picked up. Hopefully this will give a trade of ideas about what to practice. Especially those who don't have a teacher and are looking for something new. And at the very least I think it would be fun to see what each other are doing. I'll start:
The Everyday Forever List:
Arpeggios:
Major Seven,Dominant Seven,Minor Seven,Half-Diminished, and Diminished. First just the chord tones, then adding specific extensions. Three keys a day, all positions in each key.
Scales:
Major Scale. Again, three keys all fingerings.
Then I like to take my major scales, call out a mode and play it off of my major scale fingerings.
A fast run threw harmonic and melodic minor(may not be every day)
Chords: The same as the arpeggios. All inversions included.
Sight Reading: This has three parts that I rotate daily as not to get bored. Sight reading from the Berkely Book(Where my teacher gives me my assignments for sight reading), The Mel Bay books, and random Real Book flipping.
Running threw tunes I already know well as to not get rusty on them.
The "new" practice material:
As a jazz musician, jazz is my main focus. I usually have two songs I work on at a time. That involved the songs melody, chords and improvising over it. At the moment those two are "Take the A Train"(I know I know, I should have learned it years ago) and Pent Up House by Sonny Rollins. Both the current Real Book Arrangements.
I'm always learning new sets of chords as well.
I also like playing non-guitar parts from classical music on my guitar. Which also helps my sight reading. One I play threw at the moment is Debussy's "Girl With The Flaxen Hair" using a violin arrangement.
Also, as an aspiring composer, I'm always a variety of music both for practice and pleasure. Also, I'm working a couple of arrangements for my school jazz band for next semester.
Your turn
The Everyday Forever List:
Arpeggios:
Major Seven,Dominant Seven,Minor Seven,Half-Diminished, and Diminished. First just the chord tones, then adding specific extensions. Three keys a day, all positions in each key.
Scales:
Major Scale. Again, three keys all fingerings.
Then I like to take my major scales, call out a mode and play it off of my major scale fingerings.
A fast run threw harmonic and melodic minor(may not be every day)
Chords: The same as the arpeggios. All inversions included.
Sight Reading: This has three parts that I rotate daily as not to get bored. Sight reading from the Berkely Book(Where my teacher gives me my assignments for sight reading), The Mel Bay books, and random Real Book flipping.
Running threw tunes I already know well as to not get rusty on them.
The "new" practice material:
As a jazz musician, jazz is my main focus. I usually have two songs I work on at a time. That involved the songs melody, chords and improvising over it. At the moment those two are "Take the A Train"(I know I know, I should have learned it years ago) and Pent Up House by Sonny Rollins. Both the current Real Book Arrangements.
I'm always learning new sets of chords as well.
I also like playing non-guitar parts from classical music on my guitar. Which also helps my sight reading. One I play threw at the moment is Debussy's "Girl With The Flaxen Hair" using a violin arrangement.
Also, as an aspiring composer, I'm always a variety of music both for practice and pleasure. Also, I'm working a couple of arrangements for my school jazz band for next semester.
Your turn
