Practice Tips
Scales are worth very valuable marks and everyone can do well – you just need to practice again and again!
- Ask your parents or friends to test you on the scales in a random order, or use a spinner app, like this one for android or iPod/ipad
- Make a ‘scale pot’ where you write out the name of every scale, broken chords, arpeggio etc and put these into a pot. Take one out of the pot and practice it until the pot is empty! As always, this must be done every day. You can print free scale flash cards on Quizlet or make your own! Print these colourful blank ones and write in the names of your scales.
- Set a timer for 2 minutes and see how many scales/broken chords/arpeggios you can play through ACCURATELY!
- Do the above but include some motivation – a bowl of sweets! When you play a scale/broken chord/arpeggio take a sweet from your bowl and place it in a separate reward bowl. When you make a mistake, take a sweet away from the reward bowl and put it back into the first bowl. When you have completed your practice eat the sweets left in the reward bowl!
- Record your scales and arpeggios - it is just as important for these to sound good as it is for the pieces. Can you play them without any bumps? Can you shape them with a slight crescendo at the top and a slight diminuendo at the end?
- Check your speeds with the metronome or add a drum backing at a suitable speed.
- Play a scale dice game, like this one:
scale_dice_game_pdf.pdf |