After this sessions' exam results, I think I need to really crack down on the learning of scales. A lot of my pupils fail their scales, with one darling pupil getting 8/21! I've had a few pupils pass scales, and when they pass, it's generally quite well. Am I doing something wrong or am I trying to fight a lost cause - if they won't learn and practise them then is there much else I can do? I do not want to spend entire lessons on scales, especially as the lessons only last for 20 minutes for the most part.

Any ideas basically?

Change exam board?
Or maybe point out that if they do want to do the exam then scales are part of it and need to be sorted out. If they don't want to do exams then don't make an issue of it..... exams can hold up progress at times anyway.
Either way you can still do some work on scales as part of lessons but with less pressure on.

Try giving them a variety of different ways to practice their scales so that it is less boring. Fingering is usually a big bugbear - try playing the scales hands separately as tone clusters to reinforce fingering eg
RH C major play CDE (123) together then FGAB (1234) etc. You can use different rhythms, dynamics, start at the top and go down then up, start on different notes (other than the tonic), vary the articulation - staccato / legato... the possibilities are endless!

I don't imagine this will be of any help to you but I have found competition to be very helpful. Much of my teaching at the moment is in small groups of 4-6 so, come exam time, we have weekly scales competitions where I will ask each one a set number of scales & arpeggios each week (chosen at random - having carefully recorded the ones they got wrong the previous week). As the exam gets nearer, so does the standard expected for each scale... Since I started doing this I don't think ANYONE has failed their scales in an exam! - but I'm not sure how you could work it with individuals unless you had several going for the same grade at the same time...

Now if anyone has any tips for sight-reading...?

W

Is it piano? If so this might be helpful. I find the earlier they learn scales the better they like them. It seems to be a bit like when you first got school homework at secondary school (in the days when you didn't get it in junior school). The children think it is "grown-up".

I do one octave scales almost from the start and we talk about the logistics of the fingering at a very very simple level - like asking what you do when you run out of fingers, is it better to pass the thumb or turn the finger, why can't you go 1 2 3 pass the thumb in the RH of F major etc.

When they have slowly (it takes time) covered the Grade 1 scales at one octave we then do two octaves and when they are confident at that we start "next year"s scales" so that they can advance and we start trying hands together, first over one octave.

I never allow them to thinks cales and arpeggios are optional. I take it for granted that they are part of playing an instrument and they grow up with them. I always start the lesson with scales. We joke about the hard ones.

I'm quite convinced that the younger they start scales the easier it is for them to accept that these dreadful things exist and that they just have to do them. Quite a few of them actually like scales - but then I never minded tham much either.

Hello scaramouche! I don't let them start on their exam pieces until they've learnt most of the scales. That way they know them long enough to be able to play them well in the exam. It's hard when lessons are so short to fit everything in but try starting with one scale/arp and add on one a week if they're learnt, if not keep with one key until they can play it. They soon get the message!

You could say that they won't be entered for their exams until you know that they will pass the scales section. I suppose it may only work with the younger kids who are desperate to do the grade, but as soon as they realise that it's learn the scales or not do the exam they will get there.

Have you tried teaching them with different rhythms/articulations? Also, try to find a piece that encompasses the scale for that wekk; students then realise what they are learning them for, which is often missed by the younger ones. I'm sure that if I was told that learning c major arpeggios and scales would be benefficial for the Mozart clari concerto I would have put a lot more effort into it. (I know C major is a rubbish example, but still!)

Personally I think the answer is to change exam boards.
Spending a lesson hammering in scales bugs the ###### out of me. Especially if you know that they'll all be promptly forgotten once the exam is done. I see noodle's point, but it depends on you, as teacher, seeing the benefit of scales. (Yes, I know there are some benefits, but it's a balancing act.) Otherwise it might mean that potentially good exam candidates won't do exams. Which is also ok, I suppose, cos it's not all about exams, but at the end of the day a pupil will gain more from the practice that he/she does for an exam than he/she will from dithering around from piece to piece perfecting nothing.

So I'd have a look at TG... The exercises are more interesting than loads of scales.

Hi Scaramouche, I used to have trouble with my younger pupils when it came to scales too, until I chanced upon a helpful thread in the forum too.

I vary the dynamics and rhythms for scales as suggested. For the younger ones, I might say "Could you play C major really softly like a mouse?" or "could you play it really loudly like a giant coming down the stairs?" I was quite surprised that my pupils became willing to repeat the same scales over and over again but each time with a different description. Sometimes, I act out the descriptions as they play their scales and they enjoy it immensely.

For the older ones, I often demonstrate the scales and usually I find that enough, as they would try to imitate the scale in terms of sound and fluency. It also helps a lot that some of them see how useful scales are for themselves, when they start playing some classical stuff with scalic passages.

I've been using Paul Harris's Improve Your Scales series for the last six months or so. I've found it amazingly helpful. Previously tricky scales, such as A major at Grade 4 for flute, or Ab for Grade 5, are suddenly known without effort.

Because the pupil has played through the Finger Fitness exercises for each scale, then played two studies based on that scales and maybe done some composition, they have really absorbed both the key signature and the fingerings by the time they come to play the scale itself.

I use the studies as sight reading practice as well. Apart from explaining any terms or signs they haven't come across before, I tell them to go home and prepare it for next week's lesson. Which they do, and which, even with the poorer readers, they have done well.

My one regret is that he hasn't produced a Grade 6 book for flute with the really nasty scales in it.

I agree that these books are great! I also constantly point out bits of scales/arpeggios etc., in the pieces that they learn - once they have realised that knowing the scales makes playing easier some pupils come around to more serious work on them. My own son played nothing but scales and arpeggios for 6 months when he started the saxophone (jazz, so slightly different) - his teacher would not allow any pieces until he knew the instrument inside out - grade 8 distinction after 18 months. I just wish I could teach like this, but think that most pupils would leave!

My mum remembers her old piano teacher making her play her scales as soon as she came to the lesson.

If she got them wrong she would have to spend the whole lesson playing them

I guess that most of us start our lessons with a few minutes of warm up technical work. I include a few scales for all my students, even the very young ones, and so it becomes a normal part of the lesson. This means that when exams come around, the scales are already learned!
Happy Christmas, everyone!

And to you

I do that as well, but a few minutes is quite enough

When the next exam is in mind start scales before anything else. In lessons introduce the different types of scales and work on a group a lessons...do this for a few weeks so that at least a few scales are learnt. Every lessons test a few scales that you have them working on...and tick them off or carry them onto the next week. As lessons are just 20 minutes usually a few lessons here and there of just scales won't hurt! then leave the scales to them to practice and tell them that if they can't play most of their scales come entry time then they won't be entered..this has never worked on me but alot of other kids I see do suddenly just learn their scales

As yes...I am a teacher hence my posting in the teachers forum

Thanks for the replies. I should have said that it was for woodwind but all suggestions are useful. The pupils are mostly 15-16 year olds so have found boyfriends and academic work and laziness means they don't do much work . Most of them have taken and passed grade 5 now so no exams for a long time, just working on various other things, but still scales prove to be an issue. I guess I won't win with some.

Even the boys

Ben!

Some people just won't learn scales, until you stick something like the first movement of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto in front of them, then they start wishing they had learnt thier scales and arpeggios....

My youngest doesn't learn scales until the last possible minuite. Usually she wings it, she hasn't failed yet, I have a slightly uncomfortable feeling about the exams we are waiting for the results of.

As a teacher you can only guide your pupils along the path to a certain point, it's entirely their choice if you have expalined to them the exam requirements and they just ignore part of them.

Like people have suggested I'm trying to encourage daughter to learn them as she goes along. If scales have let her down this time it's entirely her own fault.

Personally as I student I could never remember my scales. It was only when I learnt the theory behind them that I started to remember them. Learning scales by the amount of sharps or flats in them really helps. Knowing the order of flats or sharps. Knowing key signatures and the difference between minor and major scales. If I had to go back in time and do it all again I would have done my theory exams before my practical - learning the theory makes it easier, because you don't just know the scales and their key signatures but you understand why you need to know them.

If someone asked me to play B melodic minor a few years ago, I wouldn't know how to. But now I know how a little bit more theory, even if I didn't know how to play B melodic minor, the difference is now I could work it out if I had to.

Its only now as an adult that I realise how important the theory is. But thats how life is a lot of the time.

The point is really I learn best when I have all the information. A lot of learning systems trickle the information to you, so you can learn in bits and slowly digest what you have learnt. Unfortunately I find it easier to learn it all at once, otherwise I just have too many unanswered questions. Knowing why you have double sharps instead of the equivalant note helps me understand. Learning not just the scales, key signatures but all the modes too helps me figure out how the system works, and it becomes much easier for me to memorise. Otherwise I'm constantly asking 'why' all the time and the whole thing 'seems' pointless when of course it isn't when you know the full story.

an excellent post, muse. I have found the theory behind music to be somewhat mystifying, because things seemed to be true by convention rather than by reason, kind of like I imagine law to be (eg some law means this because some judge decided it meant that in 1983 etc)
But now I've read the harmony book through twice to get the overview I am now able to do the exercises
whereas before it was just "why on earth? why on earth?"

anyway I've decided there are three theories of harmony. Theory 1 is for conventional music like standard pop and hymns: all the rules hold and you need only the first few chapters to understand them. Theory 2 is for less boring music where you need more chapters of harmony theory to analyse, and Theory 3 is for music that rewrote the book, like Debussy preludes. My teacher only gives me type 3 pieces to learn: they are all magical and defy my attempts at analysis. Hence the big leap between what I play and the theory I have learned.

To get back to scales, I had no difficulty whatsoever since they are precisely repeating patterns of intervals.
A scale is a pattern that can start on any note. The sequence of sharps and flats is the pattern that connects how the different scales are indicated. So, a pattern of patterns. Love it.

I start scales in the very first lesson (with most). I continue to add as few or as many as the student can handle until they have learnt all of the grade 1 scales.

I don't say "you need to learn these for the exam," I just make it seem like another part of playing the piano, just like songs.

I don't seem to have any trouble with students not practicing scales because to them it's just been the normal thing to do right from the start.

It might be different if it's not piano, though. On a keyboard all the notes are sitting there looking at you, and intervals are easy to see and work out. I try to introduce scales as early as possible too, as each one is relevant to what they're playing (piano), but this might not be so easy on a wind instrument, especially if the pupil has no keyboard experience.

Perhaps with other instruments you could start with small passages and call them scales. For example, within the first few lessons on the clarinet the student will probably be able to play C, D, E, F, and G.....you could call it a scale and just play those notes ascending and descending. As more notes are learned you just keep adding them on until the entire scale is learned and then tell them "this is a C major scale." Then as more notes are learned you can look at G major, F major etc. The number of scales isn't important, it's just having scales as a part of every day routine right from the start that is important. It doesn't matter if the "scale" only consists of 3 or 4 notes to begin with.

The first thing my piano teacher told me to do was the 'scale' C-D-E-F-G-F-E-D-C. I had to play it hands tog. and sep. I remember spending ages practicing it

I remember doing my "five finger exercise too" - and thinking I was great