Musical people help! - Cloth eared mother again!!!

[katelyle]

dd's clarinet teacher has said to concentrate on scales this week. Is there an easy - or at least not too crashingly boring - way of learning scales. Or is it like times tables - you just have to slog at it til you know them.

Thank you to the people who recommended the sight reading site, by the way. DD and I have both learnt a lot already.

I think you just have to do it until you've got it, iykwim

again and again

and again

and again

just keep on doing them - over and over again!

Yes, you just have to slog at it (or rather, your daughter does).

My mother taught clarinet and I've heard loads of mangled scales, generally with a nasty squeal on crossing the break - you have my sympathy! If you don't need ear plugs your daughter's probably doing all right.

you could try the great scales game. Details at practise spot

I know - you're all right. I was just hoping there was a way to spare us all the trauma of doing it properly! We'll make the game - thank you for the link. I'll report back! And I've just ordered a book with a CD accompaniament to play them to. The advantage of this is that I will possibly be able to hear when she gets them wrong!

Scales game looks good.

But in a more boring way, you can help keep going with scales by focusing on something other than just the notes.

eg, focus on making the transition between notes as smooth as possible, or try playing them in 3/4 time or even 5/8, fast, slow, standing on one leg, whatever.

Worked for me anyway....

Yesterday I picked up my clarinet for the first time in almost 30 years (yes, I do mean 30, this is not a typo) and the only thing I can still play are the scales. I didn't think I even remebered the keys but I must have practised them so many times over the years that I played that they sort of stuck. Very boring yes, but very important.

Get her to play them as slowly as she wants but with all the right notes. Then increase the speed, but she still has to get the correct notes. No point learning them wrong.

I also like to look for scales in pieces and get pupils to play those, extending them so they are the entire scale.

Like times tables - no point knowing them if you don't think you ever use them.

There are huge swathes of Beethoven if I recall correctly which are nothing but scales and arpeggios.

He wasn't mad keen on the clarinet though, I don't think?

they are dull, but agree with welliemum - try them in different time signatures.

also, practice them in different rhythms, dotted for instance, or to the rhythm of tunes - e.g you can play one to the rhythmn of Greensleeves, or the Match of the Day theme, or whatever. Practice them loudly and softly, with crescendos and decrescendos, very staccato, very legato.

Depending on how advanced she is (cos it's quite complicated), she can also practice them going up in thirds - e.g for C major, play C-E, D-F, E-G, F-A and back down as well (C-A, B-G, A-F etc.) (if you can follow that!), or in triplets like this: CDE, DEF, EFG, FGA and so on. (this also has the advantage of improving your scales because they seem SO much easier when you get back to doing the easy, straight way)

oh look i was really slow - there are all the other NZ time zoners!

Fancy meeting you all here - shall I put the kettle on?

I have a pupil who loves scales BTW. Truly can't get enough of them. Very strange.

Mine's a hot choc Welliemum to warm me up for soccer coaching in 30 minutes.

hijack