Klosé Tempos

[gary]

Does anyone know of a good source of recommended tempos for the exercises in Klosé's "25 Daily Exercises"?

Obviously it would be good to be able to play each one at mm=300, but what I would like to know is at what point (specifics not generalities) is it more productive to move on to the next exercise. Thanks.

[frankbiff]

Stop and move on when you can no longer make it musical. At some point it will be too fast to be of practical use in real music; for course revisit old exercisies every no and then, your ablility to make them musical will change with practice.

[MS]

Many teachers use the Klose to develop eveness of tone and fingers, with emphasis on picking fingers up quickly for fullest tone quality. Slow practice (with metronome) to solidify eveness of tone and fingers, then push the tempo - maintaining the eveness and tonal fullness. When you get tempo faster than you can articulate, slur everything, and keep pushing the tempo.

These studies help accomplish an aspect of technique that no other studies seem to do.

Specific metronome tempos will depend upon what you intend to accomplish, and your experience. You might list your metronome tempo accomplished weekly on the page, and see if you can push it over a perios of time.

As you get the tempo moving well, does'nt hurt to pay attention to the harmonic implication outlines for most studies and how they modulate from key center to key center. May help to make some music rather than just fingers.

They are intermediate exercises at face value, but can have depth for advanced players if you look for it and use some imagination.

They're probably called 25 Daily Exercises for a reason.

[Vincent]

MS.......You mentioned that the Klose' studies helped to accomplish an aspect of technique that no other studies seem to do. What do you feel it is? Also, what other studies are you comparing it to? Thanks.

[Razzy]

I think he's talking about the fact that they're a nonstop bombardment of harmony and melody all intertwined; basically, you can learn a lot with a bit of practice. This book also has some really strange interval jumps in it once the tempos go up. Check out #20, play that sucker to quarter = 130 and you'll know what I'm talking about!

[MS]

Vincent
These studies can be used (at the intermediate level) to develop eveness - of tone, fingers, and rythm. The early studies are close intervals (which spread out in the later studies) with plenty of across the break activity. They are long, but comfortable keys, and most are intermediate difficulty.

I have tried replacing it with outer materials a few years back, and the results were not as good. :D

[gary]

Thanks for the thoughts, guys. Cheers.

[Stencilman]

It always bothered me that even though there are key modulations, they are are to "comfortable" keys. In certain situations, a sax player has to play in more difficult keys. For instance, a lot of guitar oriented music is written in the keys of G, D and A putting an alto player in E, B and F#.

I took the effort to make MIDI files out of many of them so that I could easily change an exercise to an unusual key. Even the first few exercises become a very different challenge to read and play when they are transposed to the key of B or D-flat .

[proudft]

Wow, Stencilman, I was just about to embark upon the same project with the Klose! Do you think you could you send me the MIDI files you have made so far, and I can then start in on the others? No sense duplicating effort! :)

Seriously, though, I would appreciate it. I even started transposing #6 (one of my favorites) by hand with pen & paper, but that quickly got real tedious.

My email ought to be in my profile. Thanks!