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Richard that is the first I have came across that system. I learned tea , coffee, coca-cola, but I prefer yours. I think my 5 year old would like that one too. Although I might substitute banana for apricot. Do you have something to use for minims and semibreves ?

Apricot is better because the accent is on the first syllable, rather than banana which has it on the second. Tangerine and cucumber would also be good ones. Zucchini would not, for the same reason.

Right now I'm trying to sing the melody of Chopin's 25/2 using the apricot (or tangerine, or cucumber, or banana, or zucchini) method. I haven't been successful so far.

Last time I played my scales in semibreves I fell asleep before I got to the end

No, I don't. I tend to just lengthen plum or use another more suitable word when the occasion demands it but I try to use a word that takes longer to say such screech - no reference to anyone singing Chopin!

Cucumber can be used as a tribrach, three equal syllables, and is excellent for scales so thank you for that, Polyphonist. Apricot is a dactyl, having the accent on the first syllable.

Singing the note is excellent practise and great aural training. If you practise your scale playing on headphones it can also be embarrassing, as can trying to cover four octaves.

Cucumber is good yes.
However I'm from Lanarkshire in Scotland, our accent is most definitely on the Ba in banana.

Thank you very much to everyone for all your very thoughtful and helpful suggestions. I will study your posts and try to put all this good information to use.

Anne
(dagdvm)

zrtf90,

How would you word this? Something with 6 syllables, or?

No, three or two depending on whether I'd include the LH on beat 1.

Without the surrounding phrase it's difficult to see which is the best solution.

What's the whole phrase?

The idea is to use a syllable on every note using the natural rhythm of speech instead of counting. The common phrase for four vs. three polyrhythms is:

'pass the gol-den but-ter'

When its the less common three against four a better phrase might be:

'pass me the but-ter knife'

Try saying this to tune of Silent Night to get a better idea:

Sleep before dawn
Wait for the morn
Hush, my dear!
Look! It's here.

D'you get the idea?


In your example there's a choice here of using the LH chord as part of the wording in which case I'd use a trochee on beat 1 or skip beat one in the wording and use an iamb for the RH.

Either 'Go-ing home' or just 'Before' might be suitable.

The problem I have with the use of words like that is that there's nothing to help you hold "home" for the right amount of time. My natural way of saying "going home" has "home" take just one beat. To be able to feel and hold it for two beats, I have to have some implicit counting or sense of time already. The words can't give that to me.

ETA: also, this word method could be confusing for singers, who already have words to go with their notes, and sometimes the challenge is to work out the timing of the notes which is different from the rhythm one might use when simply saying the words.

That's one of the problems of using a snippet instead of a whole phrase and words and phrases that I know instead of words and phrases that you know.

This does not exclude using a metronome or a foot for the beats either. It's just easier than counting every tick whether a note should be sounded or not.

Nor is it a panacea. It's just another tool in the box.

My copy arrived in uk today.

Will start working through it tomorrow...

Has anyone completed this i wonder... what a mountain to climb!

I do love this book, the more I use it the better it gets. I figure it will it will take a total of 6 months to "finish" properly. Not that I think I'll ever be "finished" with these exercises. Ha ha. I can feel my hands getting back into shape. Even my old repertoire is coming back with new life. I added in arpeggios from the Palmer book for good measure. I think the best thing about the book is that it makes me think about how to practice smarter not longer.

Some Tips that helped me practice better

1. Games for Memorizing Scales Faster
- practicing the Major & minor scales together in just 1 octave, but, play them one after the other without pausing. For example, C Major and C minor.

- play the Major ascending followed by the minor descending and vice versa to see if you really memorized the scale. This really forced me remember the scales better.

2. Follow the scale with Repertoire
Aside from ticking off another bootcamp achievement, I found that following every Bootcamp session with repertoire practice really gave me an all-around boost.

Resurrecting this old thread as I'd like to know how the book presents and tackles hands-together scale learning and practice? Hands separate is doable for me, but with most scales HT is where it falls apart

From the samples I've seen so far Scales Bootcamp shows each scale HS.

On the other hand, another book shared by another forum member years ago shows the scale patterns HT:

http://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/1799552/Free_Visual_Scales_PDF_Ebook.html

How do they compare?

Re: Visual Scale Diagrams
The diagrams in the Free Visual Scales E-Book/PDF look very similar to the ones in Scales Bootcamp. The main difference - Scales Bootcamp also has lots of different activities to learn and practice Scales.

Re: HS and HT
In Scales Bootcamp each Scale takes up two pages so when you lay it flat, you see both left and right hand fingerings at the same time.

Thank you! Wouldn't that present a problem as I can't imagine being able to read two separate pages at the same time when playing HT?

You don't need to do that. You only have to memorise the fingerings and the notes and Scales Bootcamp even tries to simplify this process. Can you point out what is your problem when playing HT?

I am excited about getting this book. I hope my music store has it.

Well, just the fact that I'm trying to do two different types of fingerings at the same time. I look at the score while playing because I'm terrible at memorizing. I'm hoping the Scales Bootcamp could help remedy that, at least for scales.

Old thread, but the various posters might be interested to know that a brand new color edition of Scales Bootcamp is now available on Amazon.com.

Philip Johnston