How do you make scales, tone exercises, articulation exercises, etc. for the flute fun for a talented 12 year old (working on grade 8). Frustrated at the amount of this to be done.

You don't.... IMO either you're the sort of person who enjoys scales, studies, technical exercises, or you're not. And if you're the latter, and at the stage that your son is at, then he just has to get on with all the scales/tone/articulation exercises because he knows that he has to in order to continue his progress.

Maybe it helps to have very specific aims & times allocated for each section that he's working on...for instance it's easy to get caught up on tone exercises & then have less time for articulation exercises/ scales etc, so to say 25 minutes for each & know what you want to achieve for each in that time is more useful than him thinking "I have to practise for 2 hours and get through all this"

For grade 8+ I would reccomend Furstenau's op 107, which combines tone exercises and scales in interesting studies.

For G8 I'd recommend Trinity - and instead of scales do the Orchestral Extracts - the William Tell is very fast and crisp and the Daphnis et Chloe is very beautiful with difficult timing. No one needs to learn 120+ scales half of which in keys that I've never come across any music in.

Tricky one!
Scales appeal much more to some pupils or others but I wouldn't be tempted to duck out and especially not for such a promising player. Whether we like it or not, orchestral passages come up in all sorts of revolting key signatures..... as does exam sightreading and, later, quick studies. There is no short cut, that I know of, to being completely at home in all keys and at all speeds which does not involve a thorough familiarity with scales and arpeggios.

How to persuade a young pupil to practice?! For exam preparation I offer the 'lucky dip scales pot - the pupil writes out a slip of paper for every single scale/arpeggio/articulation possibility (eg for the violin, say, D minor melodic scale, slurred bowing) and use this for 'lucky dip' regular practice once all the material has been covered initially. I give them different coloured paper to use for each of scales, arpeggios, and dims/doms/chroms, and a reasonable sized baking marge tub with a lid. Just the act of writing them all out to put in the plastic pot is usually enough to scare most of them into a bit of practice. The deal is then that after the exam I will fill the same proportion of the pot with something desirable as they get marks for scales - half marks gets a half pot etc .You choose the bribe according to your pupil.... for most, sweet and sticky things have the desired effect and it allows for your discretion to award for effort in spite of a bad exam day.

For fun and for speeding up use LOTS of different rhythm combinations. As well as the usual dotted rhythms, make up silly sentences or whatever else captures your pupil's imagination. Likewise, don't just stick to the exam articulations, make up lots of different ones with your pupil to get all those patterns as well ingrained into the subconscious as possible.

Have fun!

Please explain more - this sounds intriguing

Quote: "For fun and for speeding up use LOTS of different rhythm combinations. As well as the usual dotted rhythms, make up silly sentences or whatever else captures your pupil's imagination. Likewise, don't just stick to the exam articulations, make up lots of different ones with your pupil to get all those patterns as well ingrained into the subconscious as possible."