This page serves as an example of the type of things you will find in the Membership area. For those students in the Salem-Keizer School district, this will aid in your preparation of the All-City Horn Audition

How to use this page.

For the Technical Etude

1) Listen - you will find a reference recording of each set. Listen to the recording and make sure that you understand all rhythms and fingerings. This is the most important step. If you learn something wrong, it is so much harder to go back and relearn it.

2) Use the Small Chunk video as your first step in practicing. The small Chunk videos break down the Technical etude into small manageable chunks at a slow speed. Buzz along or play along, or a combination of both. Do this until each chunk is mastered

3) Once you have mastered the small chunk practice, I suggest moving to the Buzz play track. Here the tempo is slightly increased. This track helps you develop the connection between buzzing and playing. Just simply follow the instructions for when to buzz and play.

4) Once you get very consistent with the Buzz/Play tracks, it is now time to really develop the idea of perfect practice. The 3:1 ration track has you buzz each chunk 3 times, and then play it. Each buzz rep gets slightly faster and by the time you play it on the horn you are near/at tempo

5) At this point you are ready to begin playing through the entire etude. So go to the complete Etude practice track and work though the entire etude. You should use the practice approaches like Buzz/play or 3:1 ratio when doing the complete etude to maximize your practice time

if you follow these steps, you will be extremely prepared for you audition

(lyrical etude and scale instruction below)

Lyrical Etude

1) Listen - you will find a reference recording of each set. Listen to the recording and make sure that you understand all rhythms and fingerings. This is the most important step. If you learn something wrong, it is so much harder to go back and relearn it.

2) using the Complete practice track, find the Lyrical etude and buzz along and/or Play along.

3) use the Lyrical w/drone to practice creating the most warm beautiful and in tune sound you can create. The drone will provide feedback to whether you are in tune or not with your pitches.

Scale Practice

I recommend Buzzing and playing the scales on a daily basis

Middle School - The scale practice track starts with 1 octave Scales in the order they appear on your all city sheet, followed by your chromatic scale. If you let the track continue running you will find 4 scales that you can practice 2 octaves. I feel these 4 scales (Concert C, Bb, Ab, Db) are well within in the range of a solid middle school player.

High School - Your scales are very straight forward, 2 octaves for the following scales - Concert Gb, Cb/B, E, A, D, & G.

Then the chromatic scale, full range from low concert F to high concert F. First it appears as 8th notes, then triplets, and finally 16th notes.

Good Luck and Happy Practicing

*you can change speeds on the youtube videos. So if any part is to fast, under setting, change the speed to .75. If you want to challenge yourself, you can speed the tempos up to 1.25, 1.5 and even twice as fast. And the great thing, the pitches stay the same.