Monday, March 6, 2023
Scales are a challenge for many students. They take time and focus to learn. However, they are also the language of every piece of music that we play and hear. Scales and scale patterns are fundamental to so many skills: sight reading, improvisation, composition, transcription, etc. Convincing students to buy in and practice thinking in different keys is crucial to their musical development, but what can we do to help them want to do this work? Here are a couple hurdles to get over:
- Scales are hard. Especially at first, wrapping your brain around each of the different keys takes time, and can be mentally taxing.
- Scales are boring. Practicing them in a vacuum can be very monotonous, especially if a student doesn't understand why they matter.
- Students don't understand why scales are important. Simply putting up scales as a hurdle to jump over for an audition doesn't do anything to help a student understand how helpful it will be for them to develop familiarity with each of the 12 key areas.
Rather than just memorizing a straight line of notes by rote, scale patterns can be used to train students to hear and understand melodies in the context of their key. Thus, instead of working on "scales", you and your students can play "The 12-Key Game." You can use solfege if you prefer, but I have found that scale degree numbers are the easiest way to introduce this concept with the lowest bar for entry. Below are some activities that can be used as a part of daily full-ensemble warm-ups.
- Prominently post the circle of 5ths in your classroom and refer to it often while learning each key.
- As soon as you have your students playing their first scale out of their method book, introduce the concept of that scale as "1-2-3-4-5-6-7-1". Call out individual numbers and have students play the note that corresponds with that note of the scale. This will take some thinking at first, but with a few repetitions they will get quicker at this. As you add more keys to their repertoire, repeat this exercise with each one.
- Add in simple scale patterns, and slowly increase the number of notes and the complexity. Have them try these in all of the keys they are familiar with. Here are a couple examples:1-2-3-2-11-3-5-3-4-2-7-2-13-4-5-3-11-2-3-1-2-3-4-2-3-4-5-3-1
- Add in simple songs that your students will know:Mary Had a Little Lamb3-2-1-2-3-3-3--2-2-2--3-5-5
- Add in popular music from movies, video games, or top-40 tunes.Harry Potter Theme5-1--b3-2-1--5-4--2-1--b3-2-7--2-5
- Have your students come up with their own number patterns and have the ensemble play them.
With time and regular application of these exercises, your students should be able to develop a genuine familiarity with all 12 keys, and a real understanding of how scale patterns are the building blocks of all music that they will play and hear. These skills will serve them well out there in the musical world, where facility with keys and improvising can create opportunities for enjoyment and even help win gigs.
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Emmett Starkey is a working musician in Kansas City. His primary instrument is trombone, but he is also a composer, arranger, and keyboard player. Starkey has studied music from all reaches of history and across the globe, with a focus on Jazz and Latin genres. He has performed throughout the midwest alongside artists such as Maelo Ruiz, Mindi Abair, the Skatalites, Andy Frasco, and many others. Starkey has a Bachelor's in Jazz Studies from UMKC where he studied under Bobby Watson and Steve Dekker. His current musical projects include The MGDs, an energetic blues/funk band, and Inkontenible Sonora, a Mexican Cumbia band. Emmett is the manager of our PMC Liberty location. |
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