WOODWINDS
Jazz saxophonist, composer, and educator Jim Brenan is an Associate Professor at Mount Royal
University in Calgary, AB. His dynamic performances have garnered acclaim from worldwide audi-
ences. In 2014, his album January won a Western Canadian Music Award. His latest work, The Jim
Brenan 11 Featuring Chris Andrew, was released in February 2018.
By Jim Brenan
Advancing Your
Technique
Part 2 – Cell Practicing
W
hat’s a practice routine without
running some scales?
I know – everyone loves to
sit in a little room and play their
scales over and over again… Unfortunately, they
are a vital part of every musician’s background
and time must be spent perfecting them.
Once I’m warmed up, I like to remind my-
self of the parent scales: major, melodic minor,
harmonic minor, and harmonic major. By play-
ing scales in a challenging pattern, I am forcing
myself to focus on the task of playing the scale
well, but also working through the complex
permutations I am learning.
When learning a new pattern, I like to break
the exercise down into three- to five-note
groupings, often playing the “cell” back and forth
to become comfortable with both the technical
movement and the sound of each section. Each
“cell” is then added to the previous one to build
a longer section until the whole passage can be
played flawlessly.
We all know how good it feels to play a chal-
lenging technical passage well over and over
again, but after a while, it no longer adds to your
growth; it just feels good to play something well,
and that’s not our primary focus here.
It’s important to change the pattern once
you have mastered it. Once you play the scale,
a good first pattern to focus on is thirds, like in
Ex. 1. While working through:
• Focus on small cells
• Add cells together
• Play forwards and backwards repeatedly
until very comfortable.
This type of cell practicing can be applied to
any type of technical/flexibility work on the
instrument. This will come in handy when you
start diving into rhythm changes in all 12 keys,
but we’ll have to save that for another time.
Thirds pattern
1. focus on small cells
2. add cells together
cell #1 cell #2
cell #3
cell #4
3
5
7
cell #5
9
cell #6
11
cell #7
complete exercise
15
13
play forwards and backards-
repeat until very comfortable
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CANADIAN MUSICIAN 29