Once you know how to figure out any key signature and major scale (see Scales 1) and you have gotten more familiar with all 15 key signatures and their major scales (see Scales 2) it is time to really connect this knowledge to your best music making.
Here are three creative and effective ways to work with this material.
Creative Practice Approach #1
One way is to play familiar tunes in each key.
You may have some music memorized already but can you play it in any key?
This can be a significant shift in what it means to you to “know” a tune.
Most amateur musicians can play a few tunes from memory using a combination of muscle memory, pattern memory, and specific note memory. For example you might be able to play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star because you know it starts on a C (or whichever key you know it in) and jumps up to G, then A, back to G, and then down the scale.
But if you tried playing that tune starting on a different note would you know what that second note would be? Would you be confident about the notes in the descending scale, or would you “fish” around until you found the notes you were hoping for?
Knowing a tune so that you can play it in any key means that you understand it in a more fundamental way. In Twinkle that means that we understand that we start on the first note of the major scale and then jump up to the 5th note of the major scale.
There are two ways to express this. One way is the traditional Solfège system. For Twinkle we would sing: Do Do Sol Sol Lah Lah Sol, Fah Fah, Me Me, Re Re, Do.
Another way is by numbers. In that system Twinkle would be 1 1, 5 5, 6 6, 5, 4 4, 3 3, 2 2, 1.
Here’s what that would look like in C major:
Both systems do the same thing. The Solfège syllables are nicer to sing.
The syllables and numbers are exactly the same in every major key so if you know a tune this way (and you know your keys) then you can play it any key.
Learning a few familiar tunes this way is a great way to get much more familiar with your major keys.
Creative Practice Approach #2
A second way to work with your keys in a more musical way is to improvise in the key.
This might seem like a leap. It isn’t.
Most musicians wait way too long before they start improvising and composing. (Of course, a lot of this comes from a tradition of teaching, especially in classical music. That’s a whole other topic.)
Improvising is very enjoyable and is as easy or difficult as you make it. You can choose to improvise in a simple way or in a more complex way. You are in complete control. It is ideal for learning new scales and keys.
Here are my “rules” for improvising:
- start with a beat.
- keep it simple
- use rests
- use repetition
“Start with a beat” means start by putting on a metronome or tapping your foot or just thinking of a tempo. You might have an idea or a feeling or an image that you want to express and that impulse might suggest a tempo to you, but you don’t need anything but an arbitrary tempo to start. The reason that “start with a beat” is the first rule is that with a beat you are almost guaranteed success and without it you almost guaranteed frustration.
“Keep it simple” is my second rule because most of us have a tendency to “out play” ourselves. No matter how strong our technique is, it is always possible to play faster or more complex than we can handle. You might be surprised to learn that complexity and speed add very little to a listener’s experience. Excess complexity and speed in the practice room remove all benefit.
“Use rests” is in there because it often does not occur to us. This is a way to keep it simple and it is also a way to listen to yourself. In frequent silences we can reflect on and respond to what we just played.
Repetition is another technique like rests that players often leave out of their playing because it seems too easy.
Easy is good! Easy is the point
When improvising on a new scale I also suggest playing “additively”.
That means improvise on just the first two or three notes of the scale and gradually add more notes as you become comfortable. Spend a good amount of time with those two or three notes – it is fun to see how much we can say with a few pitches. Working with rhythm, dynamics, rests, short notes and long notes, accents and ghost notes will add more to your creatively than adding more notes.
Adding new pitches gradually helps create a sense of growth and development in your improvising.
Creative Practice Approach #3
A third way to work with new scales and keys is practicing patterns. I left this option at the end because it is so open-ended and potentially boring. If you are bored you might not be playing musically.
The ability to play scales in thirds, fourths, etc. is a wonderful resource in your improvising but it can become sterile.
Here are two solutions:
- make up your own patterns
- think of them as music motifs
- make them as interesting and fun as you can
- follow my rules for improvising
- start with a beat.
- keep it simple
- use rests
- you will be using repetition because you are going to repeat the pattern up and down the scale
- if you want to learn a particular pattern like scales in thirds or outlining triads or some other strong pattern
- improvise around the idea
- working additively
- meaning insert rests and use repetition
- to keep it easy
- and groovy
- and fun
- improvise around the idea