I'm finally back tp practicing my Allora AAFG 103F flugelhorn after a short break. The reason for the break was to finish a project I started earlier for Christmas. Now that it's finished and Christmas is already in the past, I can move ahead with my studies again. Before I get into phrasing, I'll give you an update on my progress.
Yesterday I did quite well as I even hit the A above the staff fairly easily. Today, I hit the high C above the staff. It was a bit thin but never the less I am at the point where I have a 2½ octave range; from the low F# below the staff to the high C second ledger line above the staff or C6. That's progress! I have several mouthpieces and I alternate between them. One is actually a trumpet mouthpiece, another a coronet and 2 are flugelhorn. The trumpet mouthpiece is a bit longer than the others and make me out of tune....no ya just can't lip this one up. LOL. But since I'm not playing along to music, right now it doesn't matter to me. When my lips get fatigued from playing one, I'll switch to another. Somehow doing this helps alleviate the fatigue. My embouchure isn't quite there yet but only playing the horn for less than a month, I'm progressing very well for an old guy.
As for reading music, I do it very well as I have been classically trained on keys and of course ya just can't go to music college unable to read music. I do not have the notes in front of me while practicing scales because I want to use my brain while playing them. Sometimes reading notes become a crutch where one depends on them and never actually learning the properties of the scale to begin with. For many years as a jazz keyboardist and guitarist, I've relied on either fingering or patterns to play scales rather than thinking of the structure. Playing without the notes in front of me makes me visualize the notes in my head thus learning much quicker.
Playing the chromatic scale helps me with the fingering. I don't try to play fast, maybe quarter notes for now until my mind is coordinated with the fingers better. The other scales are used for building my embouchure and range. I'll begin with a C major scale and then play its modes as far as I can reach and then back down. In jazz, intervals are used often so I'll play the scales in seconds ( C-D, D-E etc), thirds (C-E, D-F, E-G etc.), fourths (C-F, D-G, E-A etc.) and fifths (C-G, D-A, E-B etc.) I'll do the same for the next key and so forth. At this point in time I haven't read one lick of notes nor have I even worked on other music. This is just a warm-up. When I finally get down to working on a song, I'll pull out the sheet music which I printed out for myself and work on the fingering first. At first I played perhaps 4 bars. Once I got that done I added another to it or perhaps another 4 until I have a complete phrase.
Sometimes my phrases are long, while other times short. I'm killing two birds with one stone here. For one, I'm building up my diaphragm where I'm not running out of breath every measure/bar. Two, in jazz one plays various length phrases, not just short ones i.e 6 beats or 12. I'm used to playing anywhere up to 27 on the guitar. Yes, the phrases can be uneven. Where does it say they all have to be even and that they have to begin or end on the beat. A jazz phrase can end up on a sixteenth note on the down beat or upbeat. I've even played a phrase for 9 beats and ended it on the upbeat of 3...no biggie!
The best way to learn phrases, whether you play a horn or any other instrument is to use curse words in sentences and then try to play the notes as they sound as you speak them. Listening to oneself closely or even recording them just to see where the emphasis are will help. The dirtier the better. Don't be shocked at what you might hear coming out of your mouth LOL. This is one time where you might actually put cursing into good use. Shorter sentences teach me new licks. Each time I say a phrase, I say it differently accenting different words. The great thing about doing it this way is that one emphasizes certain words by accenting certain letters. Try saying these two words as an example, holy shit! or these words; get that mother back! Say it to yourself different ways, notice where the accents are? Now play the notes. When playing the notes, I also accent the same. See what I mean? One could do it using regular clean language but often times we don't put emphasis on certain words or the phrase itself the way we do when cursing. They wok in any key and with any chord progression. When practicing these curse word sentences/phrases you may want to do it in privacy for obvious reasons. There was a time where I would be playing a gig on guitar and when it came to my solos, I would be cussing up a storm and would speak them out loud while playing. If anyone would have heard me...oh no! Anyway, for some reason remembering these cuss sentences are easier than the actual notes or other clean phrases.
When I finally get my fingering and phrasing down, I will go ahead and put it in use or atleast try to by playing to accompaniment tracks created with Band In A Box. Now remember to use these phrases you just learned in your playing.
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