Review

Larry Clark
The Complete Scale Compendium for Trombone/Euphonium:

New York, NY, United States
Publisher: Carl Fischer
Date of Publication: 2014
URL: http://www.carlfischer.com

64 pages

Primary Genre: Study Material - method
Secondary Genre: Study Material - etude

Behold the power of music notation software. Enter a pattern once and, with the transpose function, you’ve got that pattern in every key. Write a book for one instrument and, with minimal effort, you can produce that same book for every instrument. I apologize for the cynical tone but there seems to be a glut of scale books coming out based on this simple principle. The Larry Clark Scale Compendium, also available for flute, clarinet, violin, saxophone, etc., is 64 pages of scales and arpeggio patterns ranging from C to b1. The first half of the book is organized by pattern with the keys changing.  The second half is organized by key with the patterns changing. The book includes the diatonic modes, harmonic and melodic minor, major and minor blues and pentatonic as well as whole-tone and chromatic scales. The introduction includes a reasonably good discussion of the interval content of scales. Band directors may find some appeal in the book’s universality. This Compendium is useful in the way that any systematic practice of scales is useful but I see nothing here that is terribly compelling for trombonists. For example, there are no suggested slide positions and many of the patterns cannot be performed in a single breath although, on violin they should work fine. At least trigger range notes are given parentheses. Besides that, this book offers nothing that hasn’t been done countless times before and will probably be done countless times in the future.

-Brad Edwards
University of South Carolina