There are all kinds of ways to gain dexterity and technical facility on your instrument. A lot of students get books with etudes or exercises, but I’m a big proponent of making up my own exercises. Anyone can do it. Here’s how.
Choose Your Materials
First, you decide what your exercise will be based on. It could be a scale, a certain interval relationship, or a piece of a melody you like. I like to work with scales a lot, so I will take a scale (major, minor, altered, etc.) and start making patterns out of that scale. Here’s a common exercise for a major scale:
The scale
Ascending on the scale by the following pattern (down 1 step, up 1 step, up 2 steps, down 1 step, repeat)
Descending on the scale in a similar pattern, but in reverse (up 1 step, down 1 step, down 2 steps, up 1 step, repeat) 
This is something you might find in a standard exercise book, so there’s not much new here, but I took this exercise and started expanding the initial interval between the first two notes and built new exercises from that process. The previous example is based on the interval of a 2nd. But what if I made an exercise based on 3rds? Here’s how I did it:
Ascending
Descending
All 12 keys
So, you’ve created an exercise for yourself. Now apply that same exercise to all 12 keys. This is especially helpful for piano players and wind players, because each scale presents its own set of fingerings. Guitarists only need a pattern once and then they can put it anywhere on the fret board, but transposing an exercise to all 12 keys also helps to expand the guitarist’s comfort level with different keys. I’ve played with a lot of guitar players who don’t want to hear words like “flat” or “sharp.” But if you hear those words, and you immediately know where your hands are going, you’ll be a much more desirable player.
A Final Note:
These are pretty straight-ahead exercises I’ve used to illustrate the concept, but the purpose of showing you this is that I didn’t find these in a book. I just came up with them for myself to get more facility on my horn. I also have exercises I practice based on 4ths and 5ths, as well as patterns I just like the sound of that I want to be able to play in any key on any chord. This is all about personal creativity in developing the more mundane aspects of technique. Plus, you save money by not buying books and developing technique that might be more relevant to you, your playing, what you’re trying to do, and what you know you need to work on.
Take charge of your own musical facility.
more articles by Brien Henderson
- Anatomy of the Blues Scale
- A Great Site for Old Music
- Every Musician Should Read This
- Saxes: Work Your Pinkies!, part 1
- Spice Things Up With The Tritone Sub
- Writing Your Own Music: How To Get Started
- Intro to chords in Jazz
