Connections-A Scalar Approach
Someone recently asked me to sketch out my approach to learning scales on the trombone that can be used in improvisatory situations. Now there are as many “scales” as there are stars in the sky…it is up to the individual player which ones he or she is going to choose…but my approach to learning scales is the same whether they are the simplest diatonic scales or incredibly sophisticated scalar constructs out of Nicolas Slonimsky’s Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns.
Here it is, as simply stated as possible.
Take a scale…any scale (let us say for simplicity’s sake a major scale with one added chromatic note)…and practice it in all keys, starting from all of its notes, in every meter in which you commonly improvise, from every available subdivision of that meter. Do so in every pattern of which you can conceive and be very careful to use the most effective, efficient positions for every different iteration of the scale. Do so in good internal time as dictated by a tapped foot, and practice every variation of it as fast as you can possibly it play nearly perfectly no matter how slow that may be, in every style of articulation (and combination of styles) that you wish to be able to use through all available registers.
Whew!!!
That’s a mouthful, isn’t it!!!???
But there it is.
There are a number of sections in my book Time, Balance And Connections that deal with just this set of ideas…at least 100 pages, total…and I simply cannot concentrate it down into a concise three or four examples. Every scale that you have ever learned can be changed into something else by the simple expedient of adding a chromatic passing note, for example. Take a C Major scale. Add a randomly chosen note to it…say a Bb/A#. Choose a meter. Say 12/8. Choose a subdivision of that meter. Say the 12th eighth note. Choose a starting note. Say G. (I use chance procedures to dictate these choices, myself.)
Here is the resultant scale.
Now practice that scale through all available octaves in all of the patterns that you can imagine. Transpose some of those patterns through contiguous slide areas as well, using whatever slide positions make sense to you.
Like this.
Please forgive the error in the third line above. there should be no “(5)” above the B naturals. Photobucket is being very uncooperative today.)
Then move on to another set of relative positional choices.
Get the book, learn the approach and then start using it. The possibilities are nearly endless. If you are a fairly good player physically then in about three months of hard work things will start happening.
Bet on it.
I have been using it for well over 25 years and scales now pop out of my horn…scales of which I could never have conceived, let alone played previous to practicing this approach…almost without my bidding.
And…have fun.
I am.
Later…
Sam Burtis
About Sam Burtis
Sam Burtis has been a freelance lower brass player, arranger, composer, music director and educator in New York City since 1967. He plays all sizes and styles of tenor trombone plus bass trombone (five absolutely wonderful S.E. Shires instruments in all) , euphonium and tuba, and a full resume will soon be up on this site. Meanwhile, suffice it to say that he has played, written and taught at the very highest levels of the NYC freelance scene…specializing in North, South, Central and Caribbean American playing styles but by no means limited to them…for over 40 years. A very short list of the artists and groups with whom he has been affiliated would include:
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The Thad Jones/Mel Lewis Orchestra
Gil Evans
Charles Mingus
Lee Konitz
Tito Puente
The Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra (Under the direction of David Baker and Gunther Schuller)
Chico O’Farrill
Marty Sheller
Rick Wald
Eddie Allen
The Brooklyn Big Band
Many years of study and friendship with the great brass teacher Carmine Caruso and even more years of playing in lower brass sections with players such as Jimmy Knepper, Urbie Green, Britt Woodman, Wayne Andre, Dave Steinmeyer, Barry Rogers, Gary Valente, Reynaldo Jorge, José Rodriques, Paul Faulise, George Flynn, Earl McIntyre, Dave Taylor, Howard Johnson, Bob Stewart, Don Butterfield and so many other great brass players and musicians that it would be impossible to list them all.
Plus literally thousands of recordings of all sorts, live performances too numerous to count, hundreds of students and two books on the trombone, the now out of print method book The American Trombone and his current book, Time, Balance And Connections-A Universal Theory Of Brass Relativity (Trombone Edition) which is now available for sale on the webpage http://samburtis.com/sams-books and will soon be published in a trumpet edition as well…mid-summer, 2009…followed soon after by tuba/euphonium and french horn editions.
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His arrangements and compositions have been played and/or recorded by The Lee Konitz Nonet, The Charles Mingus Big Band (of which he was the original music director), numerous Tito Puente ensembles, the Larry Harlow Band, the Chico O’Farrill Afro-Cuban Orchestra, the Mike Longo New York State of the Art Orchestra and many other groups as well. He is presently writing for an ensemble of his own…PanAmerica…and plans to record in the fall of 2009.
Sam started posting his ideas about music on the web in the late ’90s under the pseudonym “Sabutin”, and the general popular acceptance of what he was saying among brass players led to a whole new career as a teacher.
In short…he knows what he is doing.
Check it out.
Y’might learn something.
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Sam's Books
