Comprehensive Lessons and Concepts

Parts 1 through 4 have equipped you with everything you need for endless variations on
attacks, sustains, and decays when you’re practicing songs you want to play. This is a demo
that should help crystallize the approach you can take. Work with them often; experiment
and move from the mechanical reproduction of the principles and into the interpretive realm.

For the final segment of Basic Pitch Matching, we’ll practice “call and response.” This is
something you can do a lot of on your own by working with a friend or pre-recording your
own segments. Make sure to record yourself during this tutorial so that you can listen and
evaluate your work. Review all four tutorials often and keep working on them until you feel
you’ve really got the hang of them.

We’ll bring more of the body into the process of playing, creating more “connections,” that
lead to refining the sense of pitch as well as solidifying our ability to locate pitches. And we’ll
enhance this by becoming ambidextrous.

Developing and refining one’s sense of pitch is ongoing if precision playing is the goal. The
more ways that you can approach the task, the better. Let’s concentrate on scales, intervals
and longer, more complex passages that require even more acute listening and retention.

Another challenge that helps create more neural pathways by using an object as an extension
of yourself. this means that you’ll be locating pitches with something other than your body.
Since precision playing is so dependent on pitch, these experiments for approaching any song
have you use elbows, head and even… well, take a look.

Once again we work with the concept of “playing without trying,” intended to create the state
of mind, body, sensation and approach to playing that is free of tension, anticipation, anxiety
or effort. This time, your are eyes closed in order to intentionally disorient yourself; you then
“fit” a song into your random, free flowing movements.

Now that you’ve practiced isolated attacks and decays, you’re ready to work with all of the
possible combinations. This will sharpen your ability to reproduce and differentiate them with consistency. Each variation requires subtle and specific movements of the volume hand.
Record yourself so that you can hear and evaluate your progress.