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Altered My Long Tone Regime

4K views 11 replies 9 participants last post by  keluitry 
#1 ·
Someone mentioned on this list that there is really no difference between playing a very slow tune or several long notes in a row and playing the standard long tone exercises. In that spirit, I now play very slow 7th chord arpeggios on alternate days to standard long tones. I have around 60 arpeggios I should be practicing anyway. I still think the standard long tone practice has a great deal of value, but I don't think this value will be diminished by changing things around a bit. Does this sound reasonable?
 
#3 ·
Someone mentioned on this list that there is really no difference between playing a very slow tune or several long notes in a row and playing the standard long tone exercises.
There's quite a big difference in terms of effectiveness

In that spirit, I now play very slow 7th chord arpeggios on alternate days to standard long tones. I have around 60 arpeggios I should be practicing anyway. I still think the standard long tone practice has a great deal of value, but I don't think this value will be diminished by changing things around a bit. Does this sound reasonable?
Anything which means you concentrate on the notes rather than thinking about something else will help. When playing long notes intervals are useful but so is playing the notes in semitone steps, for different reasons.

When you play a long note followed the step up or down, you can listen and try to make the tone as similar as possible as the note pitch is so close. But then, its useful to be able to play various intervals and keep the tone homogenous also.

Whether it's 7th arpeggios or just certain intervals may not be so relevant, as long as your concentration on the interval or arpeggio is not detracting from concentration on the tone.
 
#4 ·
I tend to practice my long tones exclusively with 4th and fifth intervals. But it really doesn't make any difference, as long as you're focusing on the quality of your tone. If you start doing arpeggios, you run the risk of playing short tones instead of really long ones because you may always be thinking what's the next note in the series. However, if you think of each note of the arpeggio as a really long note (that is, one on which you use all your breath between moving to the next one), then yes, that can be effective too.
 
#9 ·
There are many ways this can be done, but the key is to spend plenty of time holding the tone constant without distraction.


I would say expanding slightly on what Pete Thomas said...once you find yourself keeping a solid sustained tone start varying it two ways looking for consistency of timbre, the homogenous tone he referenced.


Play alternating long tones with moderate to large intervals separating them. If you have one tonal quality on d1 and a different tonal quality on d2 then you need to focus on having a more uniform tonal quality on each.


Secondly you can play the same note at different volumes, also looking at how consistent the tonal quality is from the loud note to the soft, etc.


When these things all start coming together move on to including long tones merged with vibrato drills.




:glasses7:
 
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