Does anyone have any tips on remembering scales as I am currently having a mare of a time learning scales on my clari.

It's quite frustrating now as I've tried the usual, starting from a different note to the tonic, playing different rhythms but they're just not staying put in the excuse for a brain I seem to have. I suppose it's down to repetition and more repetition...............

It's weird as I have no issue with scales on the piano and can rattle them all off without so much as a thought, maybe a visual thing?

Lois

Learn either how each type of scale sounds or the pattern of tones and semitones, then play them very very slowly so that you have time to work out the next note before you play it. Carry on doing that for a while and it won't take long to get to the point where you know the succession of notes. Only then should you speed up a bit.

EDIT: I must have missed the last sentence. In that case, you know them all already and just can work them out in terms of what the piano scales do. Still go very slowly though. That's how I learnt all the recorder scales. Another thought: if you're a visual sort of person, spend time away from your clarinet just visualising the successions of fingerings, which is much harder than actually playing the scale since you can't rely on muscle memory at all.

I'm wondering if it's changing the patterns which is contributing to the problem. Maybe it would work for you to get secure on the "standard" pattern first - bottom to top and back, and uniform rhythm - and only when you're secure on that, learn how to play the scales in different ways.


I've done it the other way - clarinet was my first instrument and then I started learning piano. The scales on piano are so much more "sensible" than on clarinet, and each octave is just repeated whereas on clarinet, completely different fingerings are used for different octaves, and even within an octave, the fingerings don't always make sense. So maybe on piano you're used to rattling off different starting points and rhythms, but on clarinet, it may take a lot longer and as mentioned above, it may be better to get just one pattern secure first before venturing on to others.

Even after my first lesson or two on piano, I was rattling off piano scales like there was no tomorrow, but I don't think it's like that on clarinet. If you like rattling off scales on piano though, you'll probably get to enjoy them on clarinet too - it may just take a while longer


PS. I'm a student so I may be talking rubbish, in which case, just ignore me!

I came from 60 years of playing piano to the flute. Here are my tips (some are also covered by other posts)

1. Slow down - you won't be able to play them as quickly as on the piano and I bet you are trying to.
2. I assume playing clarinet is a bit like the flute in that you can't see your fingers as you can on the piano - this led me to visualise the piano fingering which I don't think helped. The breakthrough for me came when I at last began to visualise which fingering went with the note I wanted to play on the flute. I used to play scales in my head like this before going to sleep.
3. I found a long pencil and started playing imaginary scales on it, using it like a flute. This again made me go slowly, made me think about which note came next, and made me think about the fingering. I had developed the habit on the flute of playing the note I thought came next and if it sounded wrong I then corrected it. This lulled me into a false sense of security and made me think I could play a scale when I could not in fact - the pencil helped overcome this problem, and also it was possible to use it in other situations (although I did get some strange looks!)
4. I played each scale in increasing order of difficulty (for me that was number of sharps and flats!) and recorded how many times I had to start each one before playing it correctly. The next day, I concentrated on those with the greatest number of errors.
5. In preparation for my exam, I recorded myself calling out each scale as the examiner would - such as "A major, tongued" and placed each one as a separate track on my computer. Then using Windows Media Player with Random play selected, the computer asked me for the scales in a random order. This helps build confidence that you know them, or shows that you don't.
6. Play scales slowly until you get them right. Only speed up when you know you can play them slowly. At the start of the process this may mean a different speed for each scale, but you can gradually make them all the same as you progress.

I would just say that this worked for me (well I got 17 out of 21 for my first exam), but maybe you need some variation of this for your own problems.

Good Luck.

To add to the advice you've already received - have a look at this thread, for starters! More scale learning and practice ideas than you are likely to be able to apply in one lifetime

This is the most helpful technique I have found, for a possibly clearer explanation check out Andante_in_C's posts here and here - there may be others too - Andante provides the clearest explanations I have come across! She puts it better than I am able to