Memorizing scales

ByBret Pimentel

As I’ve mentioned before, my university students are subject to a scale proficiency exam. Most arrive at the university “knowing” at least some major scales, but most of them will also have to learn at least a few new ones and maybe put some old ones into a new format.  For their exam, the scales need to be memorized well enough to play three randomly-selected major ones, and three randomly-selected melodic minors.

For some students, there are technical barriers to this:  untrained fingers, insufficient familiarity with alternate fingerings, or tone production issues in extreme ranges. Some also struggle with nerves or other psychological baggage (“I’ve never been good at scales, Dr. P.,”). Even among students who are moving rapidly through advanced repertoire, and have all the necessary facility to play the scales, there are some that find the memorization to be very difficult.

metronome
Photo, CZMJ

Here are some of the issues that my students have:

  • Playing too fast, too soon. While accumulating the many, many repetitions necessary for mastery, it’s crucial that the repetitions are totally accurate. I sometimes see a student start a scale at blazing speed, make a mistake within the first five notes, start over, and repeat. (Some determined but misguided students will repeat this cycle indefinitely until I stop them.) Two possibilities present themselves here: first, the student is making the exact same error over and over, cementing the bad habit; or, second, the student is making a variety of errors, developing no habit whatsoever because there is no true repetition. I beg them to slow down—whole notes at 40bpm are an acceptable starting point if that is what it takes to play the scales the same (correct) way every time. Use a metronome to enforce disciplined tempi.
  • Substituting academic knowledge for technique. I do expect my students to be able to “spell” their scales. Some, when I ask them to play, even like to spend a moment thinking aloud about the key signature or interval pattern. Some can even successfully pull off a scale that they haven’t practiced well by thinking through the notes while they play, but this is risky behavior when the pressure of an exam is applied. “Knowing” the scales academically is one thing, playing them is another. They need to be practiced until the fingers can do them on auto-pilot.
  • Going one way only. Some students can play a scale smoothly and accurately going up, and then stumble through the descent. Unfortunately, the ascending and descending versions, even when the pitches are identical, are separate feats and must be practiced equally. No shortcuts. You can probably recite the alphabet very quickly, but slow down quite a bit when saying it backwards—you haven’t practiced the backwards one as much.

For successful, useful, technique-building scale memorization:

  • Go as slowly as you need to go to get total precision every time. Speed up gradually, but never at the expense of accuracy.
  • Repeat many, many, many times, over the course of weeks, months, and years. Plan to spend a lifetime polishing this crucial part of your technique.

Practice smart!

Similar Posts

  • Isolating problem spots

    ByBret Pimentel

    Earlier this month I posted about a fundamental practicing concept that sometimes escapes my less-experienced students. Here is another:

    Me: Play your D melodic minor scale.

    Student: [Begins D minor scale, plays a wrong note in the second octave.]

    Me: Whoops, remember to play B-natural.

    Student: Okay. [Starts over, makes same mistake.]

    Me: Please start at the second-octave A, and play just from there to—

    Student: [Starts from second-octave A, makes the same mistake, proceeds to finish the scale.]

    Me: No, I want you to start at the A, play just to the B-natural, and stop.

    Student: [Plays.]

    Me: Okay, that’s correct. Now—

    Student: [Starts over, makes same mistake.]

    Practicing in overly large segments is an issue for less-experienced students for at least three reasons. The first is that is it makes it difficult to notice exactly where the problem is happening. Students may tend to “power through” a section and evaluate it as a whole (“That wasn’t very good”), then simply start over again and hope for the best. Sometimes my younger students are surprised when I point out that they are actually making the same mistake over and over. In their minds, it’s a roll of the dice every time, hoping that everything turns out right, and if it doesn’t, then start again and hope for better luck this time. Practicing in smaller segments makes it much easier to identify and isolate problems.

    photo, Basheer Tome
    photo, Basheer Tome

    The second issue is that even if the precise problem is known, practicing it within too large a segment increases the cognitive load—it’s hard to devote enough attention to the actual problem when there are so many other notes to think about. Plus, practicing too long of a segment raises the stakes in a way that often doesn’t work well for inexperienced practicers: by the time you actually arrive at the problem spot, the pressure is really on to get it right, since you’ve already invested a lot in this run-through. If you isolate the problem to a much smaller segment, it’s not such a big deal if you have to start again.

    The third issue is efficiency. If your goal is to correct one wrong note, which lasts less than a second, and you play 30 seconds’ worth of music leading up to it and another 30 seconds’ worth after it, then you can only get about one repetition done per minute. Even if you get it right, it will take you hours to really solidify that passage. But if you can narrow the problem down to two seconds’ worth of music, you can do many repetitions per minute.

    In most cases, the problem that needs fixing has to do with getting from one note to another successfully. It may be that the second note isn’t the right one, or that it doesn’t respond right, or that the articulation isn’t correct, or a variety of other things, but the crucial concept is that there is a pair of notes, and the first note is right, and the second one isn’t.

    Step one is to practice just those two notes, not just once through, but many times. If this is only accomplished with difficulty, it may be due to the second note having a less-familiar fingering, or perhaps some kind of particular response difficulty. Practice those two notes—and only those two notes—over and over until they improve. If they don’t, consult a teacher who can help to you diagnose and improve your technique.

    If playing the two notes is trivially easy, then the problem is something about the context in which they appear. Add one more note before the first one, and repeat it several times. If it’s still easy, add one more. Continue until the problem returns, and practice that sequence of notes slowly and carefully until it feels natural and solid. If it becomes clear that adding more notes before the problem isn’t what’s triggering it, then start again from the two notes and gradually add notes after them. Sometimes anticipating what follows can cause something to go wrong.

    Don’t be overly anxious to put the (former) problem spot back into the “context” of a whole scale or etude or movement. Make most of your practicing small-segment work, and very gradually reassemble the small segments into slightly larger ones. Repeat the slightly larger ones many times, then combine them again into still larger ones.

    Take the time to break your practicing down into smaller chunks, isolate the problem spots, and work them methodically and repetitively.

  • More on airline travel with musical instruments

    ByBret Pimentel

    Since my post earlier this week about air travel with instruments, two of my favorite woodwind bloggers have also addressed the subject, both inspired by the “United Breaks Guitars” video phenomenon.

    I think it’s also worth sharing the musical instrument policies of a few of the major (US) airlines:

    Travel safely.

  • Playing at professional volume

    ByBret Pimentel

    One thing I notice about a lot of my younger university students is that they play softly. Sometimes they seem reluctant to play above what I might consider about a mezzo piano.

    If I ask, many of them reveal that they spent their formative years in school band programs getting The Hand from their directors. Beginning oboists and saxophonists in particular can make rather pungent and conspicuous noises. And band directors, understandably anxious to produce a well-blended ensemble, give the traffic-cop “stop” sign of the raised palm to hush the worst offenders. Those young musicians learn quickly to play in a restrained, timid way, and that anything louder than a murmur is a faux pas.

    I can’t really blame the band directors, who have a set of concerns different from mine. (When I have taught beginners in a private lesson setting, I have encouraged them to play loudly from day one, and treated softer dynamics as an intermediate-level technique.)

    But much of college-level music study is about students’ development as soloists. In that context, they need to play with authority, and, well, volume. And they may find that college ensembles have different demands than their high school groups, too.

    Fixing the problem usually doesn’t involve teaching much new technique, perhaps a review of proper breath support. The rest is encouragement and example from me.

    Over the course of a few weeks or months, I play for them in lessons, showing how I can fill up the room with sound. I ask them to imitate that sound, and urge them on to louder volumes. If I ask them to play their very loudest, and then ask them to top that, they usually can—they are just afraid to, and warn me that if they get any louder it will sound bad. But surprise! It doesn’t.

    If you aspire to play at a professional level, or teach students who do, explore the louder part of that dynamic range, and make yourself heard!

  • Fix fixable problems now

    ByBret Pimentel

    Just about every day I have a student show up for a lesson with an etude or repertoire movement they have been working on for a week or more, and there are little, silly problems that haven’t been fixed:

    • A spot where a fingering choice needs to be made, but hasn’t.
    • A page turn in an awkward spot.
    • An unfamiliar foreign term that hasn’t been looked up.
    • An ambiguous accidental that need to be double-checked against the piano part.

    It’s easy for them (or me) to ignore or procrastinate small but easily-fixable issues while busily drilling technical passages. But I know they—and I—are doing our best work when those details don’t slip through the cracks.

    It’s not worth it to spend a week practicing something in an incorrect or compromised way because you haven’t gotten around to fixing the fixable problems. Would any of these help you solve those issues more promptly?

    • Print an alternate/trill fingering chart and keep it with your practicing stuff, or bookmark an online one on your phone.
    • Put a few dollars on your copier/printer card/app so you can photocopy a page when needed.
    • Keep a good music dictionary in the pocket of your instrument case.
    • Keep your piano score and solo part together so you can always use them in tandem.

    Consider what other easily-fixable problems you haven’t bothered to fix, and ask yourself what you can do to remove friction so they get solved right away next time you practice.

  • Recommending gear for beginners

    ByBret Pimentel
    Photo, sekihan

    A beginning instrumentalist needs good equipment. For young woodwind players that means instruments, mouthpieces, reeds, and probably a few other accessories. They aren’t cheap, and the array of options is bewildering. Where can students and their parents turn for solid recommendations?

    The ideal situation is for the student to connect with a qualified, conscientious private instructor before making any purchases or signing any rental agreements. In my private teaching experience, this has happened exactly 0% of the time. It’s a nice dream.

    For many young beginners, the best counsel they’ve got is the school band director. But what, exactly, do school band directors know about, say, clarinet mouthpieces? I have the greatest respect for school band directors. But I think that scenarios like this probably happen pretty often:

    • A fine, talented, studious young man or woman, who plays, let’s say, the trombone, signs up for the woodwind methods class required for their music education degree.
    • The brilliant and respected professor, who plays, let’s say, the flute, and who is doing his or her level best to teach several instruments in which he or she does not have any specific training, puts in phone calls to some colleagues and picks their brains for their best recommendations for clarinet mouthpieces. Several of them mention one particular model. The professor types up a class handout, listing that specific mouthpiece as an affordable and high-quality option, suitable to most beginners.
    • The young aspiring music educator accepts the handout, studies it, successfully answers a test question about good student clarinet mouthpieces, and files the handout away for future reference.
    • Ten years into the educator’s career, the mouthpiece company merges with another company. Decisions are made by non-clarinetists wearing expensive suits in a well-appointed conference room. The mouthpiece makers are laid off, and mouthpiece production moves to an overseas factory. The mouthpieces look much the same as before and bear the same brand name and model number, but the quality drops significantly, as does the manufacturing cost. The suit-wearing non-clarinetists get large bonuses. Read More “Recommending gear for beginners”

  • Practice fewer notes

    ByBret Pimentel

    I can’t remember where I picked up this tip, but it has been a game-changer in how I practice technically-challenging passages. (If you know a source, please let me know!)

    The idea is this: practice only as many notes as you can keep in your head. So, if I’m practicing an unfamiliar passage, and can only memorize the first 3-5 notes at a glance, that’s the size of chunk I should practice.

    If the music has an obvious or familiar pattern, such as a common scale or arpeggio, I might be able to memorize more of it at a glance, so I can practice a larger chunk. Or, as I get increasingly familiar with the piece, I might be able to hold more of it in my memory at once, and can graduate to longer passages.

    It’s tempting to practice in larger chunks, but start smaller at first to really develop your muscle memory. Gradually build to larger segments as you are able to store them in your short-term memory.

4 Comments

  1. Yes! — especially to the “plan to spend a lifetime….” part!

    As a jazz player conscious of the huge “ear” portion of the genera, my scale proficiency improved when I started thinking of them as intervals I really had to “hear.” Today I must admit I’d be embarrassed if required to spell out an Ebm scale or arpeggio, but I’d do better (somewhat!) playing it “by ear.”

    Reply

    1. Jack, I had a nagging feeling I was leaving something out, and you hit it on the head: when my students know what the scales sound like, they learn them much more quickly and effectively. Some get lost in the varieties of minor scales, making lots of mistakes and never really wrapping their ears around the sounds of the scales.

      Reply

  2. Hi!

    This thread brings up some ideas I’ve been incorporating into my practice and I thought I’d share them…

    In the same way as you describe ‘wrapping their ears around the sound of the scales’ I’ve been thinking a lot about ‘hearing’ the the degrees of the scale rather than getting stuck with the clarinet notes.

    What I do now is to get the A and Bb out and alternate clarinets whilst playing scales in the same concert pitch. It really helps you to forget about the individual notes and start hearing the whole scale.

    So if I start with the A clarinet and play F# major I’ll then play F major on the Bb then do another.

    If you keep going back and forth you practice the fingering of two scales whilst only listening to one and it helps intonation (you’ll start hearing discrepancies) and you’re getting better at transposing with out even trying.

    Reply

    1. Really good idea Henry!
      Cool. Could work with other pairs of instruments.

      When I was in grad school, when I did most of my practicing in room with piano I often found passages ‘sticking’ if I played them at concert pitch on piano (s l o w l y). I was then playing Bb/A clarinet, alto sax and flute.
      During grade school I was an unmotivated piano student, but the time apparently put some connection to hand shape and pitches and sequence.

      Reply

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