We want to help you practice better. Our newsfeed will keep you up to date with regular advice. Free personal help is available in our practice clinic and new news and offers can be found in our newsletter.

Does it take you a long time to learn a new scale or pattern of notes? Use this method and you will know them in no time at all!

There are 7 steps you need to complete:

1. Sing the scale

Use a good full voice and sing all the notes of your scale. Do this until you can really hear the notes inside your head before you sing them. Aim to sing the precise notes. It can be useful to use a piano to get you started with this.

2. Sing and name the intervals

Having got all the notes into your ears this next step will help make you aware of the gaps between the notes. For each step in your scale sing the two notes and then name the step between them. It could be a major or minor second or a whole or half tone if you prefer. Do this until you are confident of all the intervals up and down your scale.Read more . . .

A graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, Rodney Mack has worked under the guidance of world renowned conductors such as Leonard Bernstein, Michael Tilson Thomas, Gerard Schwarz, James DePreist, John Williams, Jesus Lopez- Cobos and Christopher Hogwood. He was awarded a fellowship at the Tanglewood Music Center where he was invited to return for a second summer during which he was awarded the Seiji Ozawa Award for outstanding musicianship.

Mr. Mack was born in New Orleans, Louisiana where he began his musical studies at the age of six. When he was eleven years of age, he began taking classical trumpet lessons with his cousin, Wynton Marsalis. Referred to as a "trumpet prodigy" Rodney Mack's solo debut was at the age of fifteen with the New Orleans Symphony. After having won various solo competitions, he received national attention at the age of nineteen performing as soloist with the Boston Pops Orchestra. He has also performed as soloist with the San Diego Symphony, the Tenerife Symphony, the Orquestra Sinfonica de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya, The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and many orchestras throughout the United States and Europe.Read more . . .

This week has been the first that I've not really made quick progress. I know I'm still improving but it has been slowed. As I explain in the vid I need to take a fresh approach to scales.

To the experienced bass players out there - if you notice me doing anything stupid - just shout I'd appreciate it.

Show Notes

Bass recording is again much better thanks to an M-Audio Fast Track USB Audio Interface.Read more . . .

We want to help you practice better. Our newsfeed will keep you up to date with regular advice. Free personal help is available in our practice clinic and new news and offers can be found in our newsletter.

We're so excited to announce the release of the Complete Beginners Guide to Practice just in time for the new term. Newsletter subscribers have already been downloading the free book in their hundreds and from today all registered site members will be able to get their own free copy

The guide is stuffed full of ideas, tips, templates and advice to help you get more from your practice time. Registration for our site is also free so signup now to get your copy.

There is no restriction on using, sharing or copying the book so feel free to tell all your friends about it.

This is just the start of the free guides that we will have on offer. Coming in the next few weeks we also have a practice guide aimed specifically at younger learners so stay tuned for that.

As always we'd love to hear your feedback in the comments below.

Enjoy your practice!

Download the Complete Beginners Guide to Practice Here

We want to help you practice better. Our newsfeed will keep you up to date with regular advice. Free personal help is available in our practice clinic and new news and offers can be found in our newsletter.

It's time once again for our regular look at what's new in the world of music practice. Here we have the latest and best articles on music practice from the web.

I'm sure there are hundreds more sites out there with great information to help us practicers! So if you run a piano blog, guitar tab resource or any other site that has some practice related information then we'd love to hear about it..Read more . . .

1. Ruthless Practice - Classical Guitar Blog
2. The Holy Grail of Piano Teaching - Piano Pedagogy Page
3. Music Training Helps Learning & Memory - Psychology Today
4. How (not) to Learn a Piece of Music - Elissa Milne
5. Error Detection in Ensemble Music Performances - Thomas J West
6. The Art of Concentration - Guide to Online Schools
7. Music Practice Tip: Unstack Your Music - Thomas J West

A very interesting lecture by music educator Robert Duke. Particularly pertinent for me were his comments on the difference between what teachers view as important and the fact that this is rarely conveyed to students.

Would you like to be the subject of a future practice clinic? Contact us with any practice problems and we'd be happy to help.

No, not an Abba song but a question submitted to the Practice Clinic by a young and enthusiastic musician:

Our reply:

Wow, you're very keen and obviously committed to a career as a musician. That's fantastic to hear and you should certainly go for it if that's what you want.Read more . . .