reference recordings
Bulldog Marching Band:COMING SOON
Basketball Pep Band:COMING SOON
Bulldog Big Band:Bulldog Lab Band: |
Wind Ensemble:Symphonic Band:Concert Band:Percussion Ensemble: |
Ways to Practice!
- Bring your instrument and music home and/or go into a practice room
- Listen to a sample recording
- Band Website Reference Recordings:
- Youtube
- A local concert playing the same music
- Band Website Reference Recordings:
- Read through the music without your instrument
- Check Key Signature
- Check Time Signature
- Check "Road Map"...D.S., Coda, Repeats, etc.
- Find common things you already know
- Familiar Rhythms
- Runs or Scales you have already played
- Things similar to warmups (arpeggios, thirds, etc.)
- Check for Accidentals
- Check for articulations, slurs, style, dynamics, etc.
- Look up words (words for styles, tempos, etc.) in the music you don't know
- Identify areas you might struggle with and finger through them
- Play through the music SLOWLY!
- Make 100% sure the notes are right...
- ...the rhythms are right....
- ....the accents, articulations, etc. are right....
- ...and check with the reference recording(s) to make sure it sounds correct
- Find your hardest passages and work on those
- Don't practice the easiest parts
- Find your hardest bar or bars of music throughout the piece and work on those
- Don't practice full runs of the music
- Repetitions
- Find those hardest passages
- Start SLOWLY
- Speed it up poco a poco (little by little)
- DON'T go faster UNTIL you can play it well three times in a row at the previous speed
- Keep slowly speeding it up until you have it a little FASTER than performance tempo...this will insure you can play it well at tempo
- Work on any Runs in the music (8th note runs, 16th note runs, 32nd note runs)
- Break down the runs into either one or two beats at a time
- Start one note before the beat you are working on of the run and go one note past the beat you are working on of the run...this will make sure you can transition from beat to beat of the run.
- Go onto the next beat of the run and do the same as above
- Example 1 [see below]: a run of 16th notes for 4 full beats into a downbeat (total of 16 16th notes plus 1 downbeat)
- start on beat 1: 16th notes 1-4 plus 1 16th note...total first 5 16th notes for beat 1 into beat 2
- repeat that multiple times
- move on to beat 2: 16th notes 5-8 plus 1 16th notes...total 5 16th notes for beat 2 into beat 3
- then repeat for beat 3 into beat 4 and beat 4 into the downbeat
- then put the whole run together
- Work on the transitions into and out of each hard section
- Work on any tempo changes...ritardandos and accelerandos...or quick tempo changes
- Start putting the piece together by sections
- Don't do full runs always from start to finish
- Don't always work from the beginning of the music to the end...you can work on the end of the music first
- DON'T PRACTICE UNTIL YOU GET IT RIGHT...PRACTICE UNTIL YOU CAN'T GET IT WRONG!
- That means don't move on when you get it right for the first time...do it again a bunch of times
- If you got it wrong 10 times and right 1 time...you have 9 more times you need to get it right just to say you have played it right 50% of the time.
- Ask Mr. Grayson for help if you are still having issues or have questions along the way!
Copyright © David Grayson 2023