Flaming_Ninja_Dragon
Miyoko Clarinetti
I can only do up to the high g...
Wait a minute... *checks really old fingering chart that's nearly unreadable and falling apart* I thought the highest note on a clarinet was a high G. you know, the one that's quite a few lines above the staff with the really awkward fingering? If there are higher ones, then what are the fingerings?
and seriously, why are scales so important? Wouldn't it be more important for anyone to be capable of playing the music, instead of worrying about memorizing scales?Why are scales important?
Easy answer:
They train your ears and fingers.
You, miss, are thinking like Plato's Musica Instrumentalis.
That's something we need to work on.
Plato believed that the natural laws governing music were the same laws that govern all natural order.
Musical harmony exists on three levels.
Musica Mundana is the highest order of harmony. This is the natural and most pure harmony of the cosmos. The stars and planets exist in harmony through musica mundana. Plato saw music on a cosmic level.
Musica Humana, though not as high as Mundana, was the goal of human thought. The idea was that the greatest harmony humans were capable was the harmony coming from human science and philosophy.
Musica Instrumentalis is the lowest form of music. This is the "music" that we think of today. As Plato saw it, such harmony was meant purely for entertainment, thus at the bottom of his order.
When Platonic thought on the musics was applied to music in general, people came up with this new order for musicians.
The Musician Instrumentalis is someone who can only play the notes given to him. He is a slave to the works of others.
The Musician Humana is someone who can write his own music, but only at the academic level. He knows "how" but he doesn't know "why."
Finally--
The Musician Mundana is a master of harmonics. He has reached a point where he is one with harmony, thus one with natural order.
Taken into a more contemporary perspective, in my opinion one of the greatest modern examples of the Musician Mundana is John Coltrane.
He started out as a back up guy, a no name. He appeared on several recordings, playing for someone else. Eventually, he gained his reputation as a composer and jazz great. Still, he would later comment that his solos from this period in his career were often little more than applications of some technical concepts.
But at some point, he had an epiphany.
Even though a lot of people dislike his later work, his "Ascension" and A Love Supreme marked a turning point. Now Coltrane is known for all of his avante guard and experimental music. He's gone beyond conventional rules of music, to find something greater. What he heard in his head, conventional music couldn't replicate.
So how does all of this apply to scales?
If all you can do is play the notes written before you, then you are a slave to what is written there. You can get each notes, but you won't pick up on the overall idea.
If you practice your scales and arpeggios, you can hear what's going on.
Say for example you might see a chromatic run. So what if you can play it? Maybe you don't see why it's chromatic. Maybe you don't see that this run is leading you to a chord tone. Maybe you don't hear this line connects the third of one chord with the fifth of another. Maybe it's even leading you back to tonic.
Maybe you need to play this one phrase, but you don't realize that it's actually just outlining the B minor scale. It'll be so much harder to mess up if you can hear that B minor scale.
Then again... maybe you can learn something about what's going in the song because of how and where this scale is placed.
More Complicated answer:
Practicing scales and arpeggios will help train your ear to hear these kinds of things. When you can hear what's going on, everything becomes easier to play. Now you know why, not just how.
So please practice your scales. They will help you so much.
*just remember to do them in as many keys as you can do.
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