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Practice Scales

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OK, here's a change of pace. If you're practicing scales, chords, progressions - anything - through all twelve keys, you have to decide how much time you have to spend a day practicing that thing and how many times in a week you want to get through all the keys. Here's a handy chart or mnemonic ideas to get starting notes to go through exercises in all keys in varying lengths of days:

If you can only do one of the exercise a day, use the notes of a chromatic scale as your starting note. C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B. It'll take you 2 weeks to play every key.

Doing 2 exercises a day, use the notes of a tritone (augmented 4th or diminished 5th) = C-Gb//C#-G//D-Ab//D#-A//E-Bb//F-B//F#-C. You'll do 2 a day and finish all keys in 1 week.

To do 3 exercises a day, use the notes of an augmented chord as your starting tones = A-C#-F///Bb-D=F#///B-D#-G///C-E-G# = you'll get through all keys 1 and ½ times a week.

For 4 a day = use fully diminished 7 chord = c-eb-gb-Bbb(A)///c#-e-g-bb///d-f-ab-b = you'll be completing all the exercises 2 times a week.

6 in a day = use a whole tone scale = C-D-E-F#-G#-Bb///Db-Eb-F-G-A-B = completing the exercise in all keys 3 times a week.

There are tens of thousands of exercises, too many to do. You have to decide which ones work the best and are the most necessary for you.