Nicholas Slonimsky (1894-1995!)

[slobone]

I got a copy of Slonimsky's Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns, and I'm having so much fun with it! He systematically wrote down every kind of scale and arpeggio possible -- there are 1330 of them in the book, not counting permutations. I guess he was a little bit manic...

Every day I practice one of these scales in lieu of boring old major and minor scales. It does take a little while to work out the fingering, but I think they're really good finger (and mental) exercises. Today for example I practiced #394, which goes:

C E Eb G F# Bb A C# C E ...

which I fingered with:

RH 1 3 2 4 1 3 2 4...
LH 4 2 3 1 4 2 3 1...

Is anybody else using this book?