I'm a flautist (did grade 7 about 10 years ago at school, nothing serious since) and am debating doing some recorder grades - I played in the recorder group and consort at school and would guess I am somewhere near grade 6 standard - pieces are doable, as is the 2 octave scale (F Major).

I am having real issues with the 12th melodic minors - they don't sound right, or I get them wrong, or I think I've got them wrong. Obviously with the flute's greater range 12ths drop away before you have to do both melodic and harmonic minors and my early teacher preferred the harmonic - so I learned the melodic pattern later.

I think the problem is that the top of the octave it what is distinctive in a melodic minor, but the top of the octave isn't the turn around in the 12th. I can do 2 octaves F minor, but don't think it would work for the higher notes ...

Will it just come with practice, or are there any tricks to at least make you realise it's right.

Also, I'm too tight to buy a scale book for the recorder as yet - what is the pattern for the "down to the dominant" arpeggios?

Thanks

R

I'm afraid there's no substitute for good old-fashioned practice. As someone's just suggested on the clarinet scales thread, work each scale through slowly, thinking in advance of what the next note should sound like, and then gradually push them up to speed.

Melodics up a twelfth aren't the worst thing of recorder scales. Melodics up an octave and down to the dominant are the worst headbanger ever - remembering you have to do the down scale before the up scale again at the bottom is


As for arpeggios down to the dominant, assuming we're talking about the major one to start with, the pattern (in solfa) is:

d m s d' s m d s, m d

so you have a jump up of a sixth just before the final tonic.

The twelfth scales aren't too bad really just pretend you're doing a two-octave scale but turn round before you get to the top.

I'll post the patterns but it will take a few minutes to sort out the noticons.

For C major:

Thanks. Dominant thing is nothing like what I was expecting! What does the scale do? Maybe I do need to buy a scale book.

Up is easy for 12ths - I just get lost on the way down, or think I do as it doesn't quite sound right as I hit the accidentals. It's just the octave bit. I spent ages getting the one octave scale into my head - then just the downwards part - which sticks fine, but as soon as I do the extra few notes I lose the pattern again!

Don't see the point in these bits of scales. Bizarre that F Major is 2 octaves and F Minor is a 12th. Doesn't cut out the most difficult bit fingering wise and just confuses the pattern.

F minor has transitions between some of the top notes that can be difficult breath-wise and the fingerings aren't exactly nice. 12th scales are much nicer than 2-octave scales once you've got your head round them (it won't take long, honest! I came from playing only the piano so scales in anything other than large numbers of octaves were downright strange to me at first.)

Do you absolutely understand the theory behind the scale, ie why it sounds like it does? If you're just learning a random selection of notes you might be making life more difficult for yourself. If you have it absolutely clear what it sounds like and why, it can help.

Huh, just realised you posted you have G7 flute, sorry, so you probably do! Worth revising though just to be sure.

I find scales on the recorder an absolute swine, even though I only ever did G1, so recorder wise I can't offer any specific help, just empathy! Generally, have a rummage through this thread which may come up trumps with something?