Scales and arpeggios are the fundamental building blocks of music and all western music is created from these patterns. A scale uses neighbouring notes, while an arpeggio uses the 1st, 3rd and 5th steps of a scale to create a broken chord, where the notes are played in turn to create a melodic line rather than as harmonies.
Major and minor scales contain eight different pitches within each octave, arranged in a particular combination of tones and semitones. On the other hand, a chromatic scale includes all 12 notes - just as you would if you played every black and white note in order on the piano.
You’re probably most familiar with the concept of major, minor and chromatic scales, but there are many more types besides. Pentatonic scales have just five notes (sound just the black notes on a piano and you’re playing a pentatonic scale), modes are created from the patterns made by playing the white notes of the keyboard in different combinations, and jazz musicians have their own varieties of scales.
They’re not just a feature of western music either - in some musical cultures other patterns are used. For instance, Indian music is based on ragas - scale patterns which can include intervals even smaller than our semitone.
Why do I need to learn scales and arpeggios?
This is a cry many teachers have heard from their students in frustration! While they may not seem terribly exciting, learning scales and arpeggios helps your music making in many different ways. Let’s look at some of them…
They help you gain fluency
If we’re to play music with ease and speed, fluency is vital. Getting to the point where your fingers automatically find the patterns needed for each note at speed will allow you to tackle ever more challenging repertoire. If you have to stop and think about which fingers to move before each note (as a total beginner might) your musical lines will lack a sense of flow.
Improve your sight reading skills
Because music is made up of scale and arpeggio patterns, being able to recognise and fluently play these combinations of notes helps you read unfamiliar music more easily. If you want a comparison, it’s a bit like learning to read text. When we first learn to read we recognise the individual letters. Gradually we learn that these letters often appear together in particular combinations so we begin to recognise syllables and ultimately whole words and sentences. The notes of a scale are like the individual letters, while a scale is a long word or sentence which we take in at a glance through familiarity.
Coordinating finger movements
One of the big challenges of recorder playing is the complexity of the fingerings. Modern wind instruments have keywork to help simplify the finger patterns. Recorders lack these, so instead we have to play complex forked fingerings (for instance B flat on the descant or E flat on treble recorder). Shifting between neighbouring notes can often involve moving multiple fingers up and down simultaneously. We can use scales and arpeggios to practise this and make our finger changes neater and quicker.
Coordinating tongue and fingers
Not only do we have to coordinate our fingers, but our tongue needs to match the speed of our finger movements too if we’re to play a genuinely legato melody. Once again, scales can be a useful tool to help achieve this.
Building up speed
Want to play faster? In that case you need to practise the patterns which occur most often in music and gradually learn to negotiate them more quickly. What’s the best way to do this? Yes, you’ve guessed it - scales and arpeggios!
Practising double tonguing
Once you’ve built up some velocity, you might need to explore double tonguing so your articulation can match the speed of your fingers. Again, using simple scale patterns are a great way to work on this without having to think about reading complex music at the same time.
For music exams
Most adult recorder players have no interest in working for exams, but if you’re someone who’s motivated by exams, you’ll need to learn some scales and arpeggios as well as pieces of music. The syllabus for the lower grades may only include a few different keys, but by grade 8 you’ll need to know all the major and minor keys.
Have I convinced you yet?
Assuming I have, you might well be asking some of the following questions…
Do I need to learn all of them?
In an ideal world, knowing all the major and minor scales and arpeggios (plus chromatic and other patterns) is a desirable aim. But this doesn’t mean you have to learn all of them! For anyone even learning a carefully chosen selection is immensely useful.
If you’re not sure where to begin, start by looking at the music you’re currently working on. What key is the piece in? For instance, if you’re playing a sonata with a key signature of two flats, try learning B flat major and G minor - the two scales with the same key signature. The music is likely to work through both of these keys at some point and if you can play these fluently the patterns you encounter in the piece will come more easily too.
Realistically, unless you choose to play Schickhardt’s set of recorder sonatas in every key, most music for our instrument explores a limited range of key signatures. It’s unusual to see recorder music in more than three sharps or flats, so I would recommend aiming for fluency in these keys before you worry about the exotic realms of D flat major or G sharp minor.
Do I have to learn them from memory?
This is a much debated topic among students and teachers. For music exams you’re expected to learn the prescribed scales and arpeggios from memory, but as we’ve already noted, many adult learners have no interest in testing themselves in this way.
In order to play scales fluently from memory you need to be completely on top of the finger patterns, knowing precisely which fingers to move between each note. This requires what is often called ‘muscle memory’, although in reality our muscles don’t have memories. This process is actually achieved by generating strong connections between our brains and the nerve pathways used to send instructions to the fingers. To achieve that (I plan to explore this more in a future blog post) requires lots of repetition, and in my experience, the process of memorising such patterns definitely seems to be harder for some people than others.
Memorising scale and arpeggio patterns presents a particular challenge for players of wind instruments. With the piano or a string instrument, there’s a logical visual pattern as you work your way up and down the keyboard or fingerboard. In contrast, each note on a wind instrument of any type requires a different combination of fingers. Yes, moving between some of these is fairly logical. But I’m sure you’ve noticed how that logic disappears when it comes to cross fingers (particularly flat and sharp notes) or the upper extremities of the recorder!
An additional challenge we face as recorder players is the limited range of our instrument. Most woodwind instruments can play scales covering at least a two, and sometimes three, octave range in all keys. In contrast, the recorder can comfortably manage a handful of scales at two octaves, but for most intermediate level players an octave and a half is the limit. This means scales come in different shapes to maximise the range we cover, either turning at the top or the bottom of the instrument. Remembering which scale follows which pattern is an additional thing to learn and can add extra stress to the process.
For my Score Lines subscribers I created scale sheets showing some of these patterns, which can be downloaded from your Members’ Area. I’ve linked to the treble recorder sheet here, but if you’d like access to all of them please feel free to subscribe here - it’s free and there are lots of other exclusive goodies for you to download besides the scales!
While learning scales and arpeggios from memory is undoubtedly desirable, I would argue that playing them from music is probably just as useful for most amateur recorder players. One of the most important skills to develop is sight reading (I’ve written a blog about this here) and being able to recognise scale patterns and convert them into fluent playing is a great way to achieve this. As with most skills, do this by starting slowly and gradually building up some speed.
How fast should I play them?
As with so many things, it depends! If you’re using a scale to develop your tone you might do best to play it very slowly - perhaps four beats on each note. But if fast playing is your aim you’ll need to take a different approach.
When I first started having lessons with Philip Thorby, I spent about three months solely working on slow scales and other exercises as we focused on developing my tone and legato playing. Ok, this may sound rather extreme, but I was aiming for a career as a professional player so it was absolutely necessary. My technique certainly benefitted from this approach and I finally began to understand scales and arpeggios in a way that set firm foundations for everything I was to learn later. Taking this approach with even just one scale and arpeggio can be hugely beneficial if it helps you focus on the foundations of your technique.
The most important thing is to play your chosen scale or arpeggio correctly from the very beginning. If that means you start out playing each note at a metronome speed of just 60 that’s absolutely fine, as long as the notes are 100% right. When you can consistently play all the notes fluently and cleanly at that speed, gradually increase the tempo until you reach your desired tempo, checking at every point that you’re still maintaining the same consistency and precision. A metronome is a really useful tool here to hold you at one speed.
How often should I practise my scales?
I’m a big advocate of little and often. Having a huge practising splurge on your scales just once a week makes it difficult to achieve consistent results. A much better way is to programme in short, frequent practice times - maybe five or ten minutes every day. This way you remind your fingers of the correct patterns at regular intervals so they become habitual more quickly. Perhaps even keep a recorder out at all times (a plastic instrument can be handy if you prefer to put away your wooden recorders) so you can pick it up and play a scale for a minute or two every time you walk by.
Which variety of minor scale should I practise?
Minor scales come in two different species - harmonic and melodic. Harmonic minors use the same notes whether you’re ascending or descending, so they’re slightly easier to memorise. However, they also include an augmented second interval (the 6th and 7th notes, which sound vaguely reminiscent of a snake charmer’s flute), circled in red below, which is less commonly used in western music.