Anyway, I'm back to doing some Jazz cello, which was put on the back burner while I worked on some classical repertoire and technique. I'm going to try and take a Music Theory class at the college next semester so hopefully that helps with my Jazz training as well.
One of the issues when I attended the jam session was that I discovered that I had a seriously lack of knowledge of my fingerboard! I practice my scales and even say the notes aloud, but I've discovered that it's all very superficial, because when it came down to it, when I was asked to play a certain note I couldn't find them very easily! Kind of embarrassing, but Daniel was very nice about it and I had explained beforehand that I was a total newb and still working on this stuff - still, a hard wake up call that I needed to start learning my fingerboard better! :(.
A great idea from Abigail McHugh's YouTube channel - spelling out words! I'll have to try this later:
Lesson Notes:
Chromatic Scale:
During this lesson we started working on the Chromatic Scale. I don't know what the deal is, but when I have to think about notes, my brain completely shuts off!! Especially, when we're going back down the scale! It's a little funny and embarrassing... Clayton would ask, what note is after D on the open A string going back down the scale and my brain would completely go blank!! ...uummmm B? Seriously, no exaggeration! Lol! ;). Okay, in my defense I was thinking about my bowing and fingering and we were learning some shifting and I was getting lost a bit... wow, brain overload...
He gave me a couple of exercises to do, which truthfully I haven't really practiced because my brain just shuts off when I have to think about this stuff!
- Exercise #1:
- Learn the enharmonic spelling => same pitch , but different spelling
- First, try saying the flats
- Second way through, try saying the sharps
- I can barely find the notes at it is, let alone switching between finding all the flats versus the sharps! Lol! :).
G Major Scale using different positions:
These exercises are to get comfortable in moving around the fingerboard and to start learning notes as well.
- Exercise #2:
- Create a 3 note pattern in G Major, he said we'd go over D Major next time
- Example: G0, A1, B3, then reverse => then A1, B3, C4, then reverse => move first finger to B, then play B1, C2, D3, then reverse => move first finger to C, then play C1, D, E and so forth...
- Exercise #3:
- Use only the first finger and move it to each note on the G Major scale, this means I will have to "shift" to each note; e.g. move my first finger from open G to A with my first finger, then move my first finger to B flat, than shift the first finger to B, and so forth
- Clayton mentioned that this should also help me with getting more comfortable with moving out of the first position.
- I should also remember to check pitches against open strings
So far I can kind of manage Exercise #2 & #3, but I still need lots of practice on it!
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