I'm sure this has been done a million times before so sorry in advance but....

When I'm put under pressure I go completely blank as to how many sharp's or flat's there are in each different scale. Is there a rhyme or something to make it easy?

You're probably appraoching it the wrong way. If you remember the shape of a scale by its intervals (tone tone semitone tone tone tone semitone) then the logic of which scale has which sharps or flats becomes apparent, otherwise you're learning it by rote rather than really understandning why each scale has the sharps and flats it does.

If you really do need a code, draw a circle and put the note letters around it like digits on a clock. Put C at the top and put all the sharp keys on the right and the flat keys on the left. To the right of C and going round the circle put G, D, A, E, B, F#, C#. The last 2 should be at the bottom of the circle. To the left of the C put F, Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb. Put Db and Gb underneath C# and F# as they are the same notes.

Then memorise the circle. I do think it helps to have a visual code. Some people visualise a piano keyboard when working something out musically; perhaps if you're not a pianist it can help to have some piano/keyboard skills for this purpose alone.

Violinia

Ensemble, which instrument do you play? The answer will be different for each instrument group.

I play clarinet and my teacher has started testing my scales every week and just randomly picking them - My mind goes blank everytime and I'm getting in a right muddle

I know that everyones probably going to see I just need to practice loads more but I just wanted a quick fix as I'm lazy!!

Sorry, no quick fixes available. If you are really good at chromatic scales you might find Violinia's method works for clarinet, but you have to be really good at knowing whole tones and semitones for it to work as there is not much correlation between fingerings and intervals on woodwind instruments, especially if there are lots of sharps and flats in the key signature.

Some tips that might help:

For major scales with sharps in the key signature, take the tonic (the key note) you are given eg E for E major and go down a semitone, giving D#. This gives you the last sharp in the key signature. Use a mnemonic (eg Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle) to find the sharps, stopping when you get to the one you've just worked out. So E major has F, C, G and D sharps.

For major scales with flats in the key signature, find the position of the tonic (eg Ab for Ab major) in the sequence BEADG. (Think 'bead +g'). Then include all the flats to the left of the tonic, the tonic and the next one to the right. So Ab major has B, E, A and D flats.

For minor scales, first work out the tonic of the relative major by counting up 3 semitones from the tonic. (Eg C minor: add three semitones to C giving Eb). Then work out the key signature as above. The harmonic minor scale obeys the key signature apart from the seventh note, which is raised a semitone. So in C minor, the seventh note is raised from Bb to B natural. The melodic minor scale raises the sixth as well as the seventh on the way up, and obeys the key signature on the way down.

Alternatively, write them out in a table and learn them as you would a multiplication table or French vocab, and get someone to test you until you are perfect.

Once you know the key signatures, you still have to train your fingers to play the scale (as I found out to my cost when I took my Grade 8 recorder in the summer).

What grade are you doing?

Thanks Andante in c - I will definitely use some of your tips. I guess I've got a lot of work to do - I'm hoping to take my Grade 7 next summer and there just seems to be hundreds of scales to learn!!

Yet another tip for learning the # and b's in a scale

For MAJOR scales the order of sharps is (as previously mentioned)

Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle

For these sharp major scales, the LAST sharp in the key signature is ALWAYS the 7th degree of the scale.

take E major - letter names of notes - E F G A B C D E so the # in the key sig are (following the Father Charles etc.,) F# C# G# D#

For Flat MAJOR scales the mnenomic is the sentence reversed:

BATTLE ENDS AND DOWN GOES CHARLES' FATHER

For the flat major scales, include all the flats up to and including the one that names the scale and then add the next one.

For example Ab Major - key sig - Bb Eb Ab (the name of the scale) and Db (the next one in order)

i've been using this

for minor scales with sharps:Eel Bake Fruit Cake Gain Dollars

for minor scales with flats:Danny Got Caught For Baby Eating

Interestingly enough I don't think I've ever "learned " key signatures - when I was learning scales on the piano it was more by ear - what sounds right- & by seeing "patterns" to the different scales. So when asked to play a particular scale I didn't think what sharps/flats do I need to play but I saw the tonic & knew what pattern I'd be playing . On the flute I went from grade 5 scales to grade 7 scales in a very short space of time -from some major & harmonic minors to all major, melodic & harmonic minors. Again I found it easiest to play so it sounded right & then my fingers learned the patterns so they sort of played automatically.
It's probably not the way I should have thought of them or learned them but it worked for me

There's no point in thinking about how anyone "should" learn anything. Everyone has their personal best way of doing it, and it's useful to thinking about the possibilities (lots of suggestions already) and finding out what works for you.

Ideas:
Looking at and playing scales and arpeggios written down in a logical order (start at C and add one sharp at a time, start at C and add one flat at a time).
Understanding the patterns of tones and semitones for the various types of scale, and relating them to the numbered notes of the scale, e.g. notes 3-4 and 7-8 in a major scale are a semitone apart.
Knowing which notes of the scale are used for its arpeggio i.e. notes 1, 3 and 5 for both major and minor.
Knowing how the individual "melody" of each type of scale and arpeggio sounds.
Playing scales and arpeggios carefully so often that your fingers "remember" the patterns.
Chanting FCGDAEB (order of sharps) and the reverse BEADGCF (order of flats) so that you can rattle them off without needing to remember words to go with them.
Learning how the key signatures relate to the starting notes.

I think it's useful to read the chromatic and whole tone scales up in sharps and down in flats and vice versa (i.e. not an academic-as-in-Grade-5-theory-type chromatic scale) over the whole range that you can play on your instrument - feeds into sight-reading as well as relating to the patterns of tones and semitones for the other scales. Include E sharp and B sharp, C flat and F flat, perhaps even F double sharp ready for the dreaded G sharp minor scales.

I seem to be unusual in having actually played a piece in G sharp minor - one of the Bach Preludes and Fugues for Grade 8 piano an extremely long time ago. I have more trouble reading double flats than double sharps. Poulenc seems to have a passion for them! I've come across one of his song accompaniments where I'm looking at a forest of double flats but my fingers on the piano know they're in A major... You can't argue with the way a composer thinks, but I definitely argue with the way he writes some things down.

grade 4
24 diffrent scales Im so afraid !!! though I didnt start yet

but if in grade 5 we have to do all the 24 diffrent scales , what Im I going to do when i go to higher grades



24 ??????????????? for god sake!!

But are you really learning them ALL at this level?
Isn't it best if you started to learn them for grade 1 and then just kept on adding the new ones one at a time?
That's how I learnt and there was generally only one or two to learn at any one time.
By the time you get to needing all scales you should really have built up to that anyway.