Lesson #86 (Jazz 09/03/12): D Major & Shifting Exercises

I haven't been practicing consistently lately and am trying to get back into a routine. Hopefully I can get back into the swing of things shortly and start enjoying practice time again.

D Major Scale (2 octaves):
Since our focus on this semester will be trying to learn as many scales as possible, he gave me the D major scale in two octaves to work on. LOTS of extensions... I hate extensions. ...oops, I mean I LOVE extensions... ;)

I don't quite have F Major down yet, but Clayton wants me to start another scale... Although he explained that he wants me to start being comfortable moving around the fingerboard more and to become "familiar" with the scales so we can start jazz stuff. I guess the scales don't exactly need to be perfected just yet.

Shifting exercises:
He also started me on some shifting exercises. I hate shifting... ugh... *sigh*  I'm starting to feel like everything has gotten SO MUCH more difficult all of a sudden. I just want to make "beautiful music." Can't it just be easy and beautiful?! ;)

So the shifting exercise from finger to finger.
1 => 1     2 => 1
1 => 2     2 => 2
1 => 3
1 => 4



Vibrato Exercises:
Vibrato exercises! My husband came down to grab a snack while I was having my lesson and commented that I should start working on vibrato!! The little weasel...

I have mixed feelings about starting vibrato though... I want to start doing vibrato, but I don't think I'm ready for it yet. Too many things to work on anyway!

Luckily, it's just an exercise without actually doing vibrato.

• Thumb Vibrato - "place hand in a position with natural balance, then lift up fingers and leave thumb, initiate forearm with loose thumb"

Clayton instructed that my thumb should be loose at all times and that the forearm was moving and not my wrist or hand. He held is hand close to my forearm and instructed me to bump up against it with my forearm while keeping my thumb nice and loose, and to keep the angle in line with the fingerboard.


I told him about my blog, and asked if I should continue avoiding any concepts that we go over during our lesson, and he said that would be best. However, he'll be done with his paper in November and I could post about it then, and in the meantime, blogging about my assignments are perfectly fine.

Which is too bad because we go over some really cool concepts and ideas... I was thinking about maybe typing it up and then posting the details later, but that's just too much work, and writing about concepts takes a really long time!