Chromaticism: Chromatic Crawling

In the following exercises, chromaticism is added to scales. All exercises use the C major scale. The scale notes will always be placed on strong beats. Practice each exercise as written, then try to move freely in the illustrated ways through various scales, also changing direction midway or skipping notes. Then mix it all up and invent your own patterns. Ultimately you should be able to move chromatically across the instrument without ever losing sight of the tonality.

In exercise 1 you move chromatically up and down. To ensure that there is always a scale note on the beat, add a chromatic approach note above when ascending and a chromatic approach note below when descending when approaching a halfstep.

Exercise 1

Exercise 1

In exercise 2 it is turned around. Chromatic approach above when ascending, chromatic approach below when descending.

Exercise 2

Exercise 2

In exercises 3-5, a diatonic third is added to scale notes and a minor third is added to chromatic notes. To avoid tone doublings, some alterations are made when approaching halfsteps.

Exercise 3

Exercise 3

Exercise 4

Exercise 4

Exercise 5

Exercise 5

In exercises 6-9, the chromatic third is added above the scale note when ascending and below when descending.

Exercise 6

Exercise 6

Exercise 7

Exercise 7

Exercise 8

Exercise 8

Exercise 9

Exercise 9

Exercises 10-15 illustrate added chromatic ornamentation in increasing length.

Exercise 10

Exercise 10

Exercise 11

Exercise 11

Exercise 12

Exercise 12

Exercise 13

Exercise 13

Exercise 14

Exercise 14

Exercise 15

Exercise 15