Hiya, Im taking my grade 5 flute exam in november and im finding it really hard to learn and remember my scales, has anyone got any tips on how to learn them or what they do to learn them? Thanks x

Take one a day or whatever. Play it. Then again. And again. Until you can play it. Come back after an hour or so and play it again to make sure you have remembered it. I find this works best during holidays, I wander around an empty house playing scales and trying not to bash the end of my clarinet on anything Make sure you practice those scales you have learnt as well. Perhaps 6 a week and one day to revise all of them?

mmm... woodwind scales seems more difficult than piano scales.
learn the notes like Rosemary said, and play all of the scale& arpeggio requierments in one day when you rememberd all of them.
It takes me 20 mins if I go through every single requierment of G6 S&As.

For loads of woodwind specific advice on scales and links to topics which might help, look at this thread.

Try learning your scales one at a time using the splurts technique or similar, and making sure you know it really well. With serious practice you should be able to improve a scale in short order, then you just have to remind yourself of it, whereas if you're trying to learn them all in one go, it's confusing!

There's a lot of good advice about the patterns of scales and how to practise in a book called "Practice is a Dirty Word" - and it says in there that wind scales are more difficult than on piano ~

I think the only way is basically to play again and again and again.....
but try to make it more fun with 'tricks' as already mentioned - start at the top, go down and up/start in the middle, go up or down, then down or up and finish in the middle/different rhythms/swing them/practise little bits of the scale/different articulations and so on.

Must go and make a start!

Sounds like an interesting book, SaxFan - where did you get it?

thanks for the tips so far.... where did you get the book?

practice makes perfect!!! Just do all of them everytime you pratice ,the hard work will pay off in your exam.

I can't remember now, but I think I asked a local music shop to get it for me. It's a paperback of about 110 pages of useful ideas covering a load of topics, like

How Much Practice
How to Work Smart
The Dirtiest Word of All: Scales
Managing Teachers and Parents
Exams, Recitals, Auditions

It's by Ruth Bonetti who has been (it says) 30 years a professional musician, teacher and speaker - she's a clarinettist. She has made it easy to read, fun really which is what she thinks music should be too. It cost me £8.40 2-3 years ago.

Nietzsche said "Without music, life would be a mistake."

I'm doing Grade 6 scales as well. I start by taking 2 scales a day, normally a major and a minor or a harmonic and melodic and just play them over and over again until i remember them.

I don't know if you will have done this before or not but i find that writing them all on paper and cutting them up, and then picking a few a day at random, once you have learned the scales helps as it prepares you to be a bit more convinced that you do know all the scales.

Good luck!

When I did my gr 5 recorder U found that the best way to learn scales, was to memorise the sharps and flats in each one so that when I played them it was easier to play fluently, as i knew where to watch out for sharp or flat notes. Now that I play the piano I do find that writting the name of all the scales on a piece of paper and picking them out of a hat helps because it ensures that you don't constantly play the scales in a memorised order as you do not know in which order they will ask you in the exam.

If you practise one a day until you really know it, then get a pot and put a little card with it written on in it. At the end of the week pull out the cards and try and play them. That's what I do with my piano students (some 80 odd scales on the advanced exams ) and it really helps. Good luck.

32 scales+ 24 arpeggios +all the rest = a lot of cards

Well, I've never played sacles...

However, when I had to learn scales for piano (Gr7) I just played them, really... This is a few years ago now, so it's not exactly fresh in my memory! But I seem to remember that there were so many of them that it took me nearly a week to get through the lot (bearing in mind that I've never been as fanatical about practising as SOME people I know!) including arpeggios and all the wierd little extras that they make you do!! I just started at the beginning of the book, and worked through until it was time to stop (usually for around 20 minutes) and at the end of that time, put a bookmark in and started from where I'd left off the next time I practised!

(Oh, and btw, hi everyone! I'm relatively new, but have been hearing about this forum for ages! I was at the Woodford Green concert, with SaxFan, and met a few of you then, so decided to sign up here! Ofc, if you don't like me, I can easily go away again! Lol...)

Don't know you yet - but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

Welcome

I dont know how much help this is going to be because ive never really had problems with scales and i dont play the flute...but on the piano, i just tend to remember where your fingers go. Dont memorise every note, but play each scale 5 times a day, and eventually you'll be so familiar with it that it'll just come naturally.

For all of you interested in Scales, either because you like them or because you have to do them, there is a useful article in the very latest edition of the CASS magazine.
It is the first of five short articles, and it gives some good thoughts about the subject.

Worth reading if you can get hold of a copy.

CASS?

Clarinet and Saxophone Society
which as a flautist you are less likely to have heard of

Ahhh *light dawns* - thanks

Hi
I find it easier to learn scales by starting with the easier scales then proceeding to the harder scales.
I also find it good if you have all the scales printed out on a sheet for you to read from. You could pick a scale then play the first few notes, try and memorise them then go onto the next few notes. After that try and play all the notes you've memorised. It worked for me as I play the flute and the piano but I find scales on the flute harder than the piano. You should try.

Bye

Although it was very long that i haven't played scales, i remember i did practise very hard for the exams! "Good practice makes progress" is true for me.

Maybe try to "feel" the flow of the scale, instead of memorising note by note. Of course, at the start we will need to find all the notes first!

maTThew

:unsure: Hi again,
I am doing grade 5 scales for flute and i have a book that might help called 'Improving your scales for flute'. It is grade 4/5 and quite useful. You should try and order it of the internet.
bye