The Best Book for Developing Your Flute Scales

 Hi everyone,

I have recently purchased a book that covers scales and arpeggios in their entirety for flute learners. I was shocked to see how much this book actually covers, and it was purely by chance that I ended up buying it. I'm not too sure how much of a 'hidden gem' this book is in the world of flute players, but its certainly worth investing in; especially if you want to further develop your scales and arpeggios.

It's also not just scales and arpeggios this book focuses on. But, it also a section for helping you to develop your embouchure; and there's a small section that focuses on getting you used to playing harmonics on the flute.

Areas That are Covered Within the Book

- Major, Natural, Harmonic, Melodic Minor Scales

- Scale Studies (Neighbouring Tone, Gruppetto, and Rips)

- Modal, Chromatic, Octatonic, Whole Tone, Blues and Pentatonic Scales

- Major and Minor Thirds and Sixths

- Major, Minor, Diminished and Augmented Arpeggios

- Chromatic Diminished Triads and Chromatic Diminished Seventh Chords

- Dominant Seventh and Major Seventh Chords

- Warm Ups and Embouchure Development Exercises

- Phrasing Guides and Practice Patterns for Groups of 6 or 8 Notes

- Third and Fourth Octave Exercises and Fingering Charts

This is an excellent resource for anyone whose looking to further develop on the flute using an array of different scales and arpeggios. The book itself is broken up into six chapters with each chapter focusing on a mix of areas that you may choose from and explore.

The layout throughout this scales and arpeggios is easy to follow, and it also has clear explanations on what the aim of each section is supposed to achieve. 

What I also like about this book is the selection of scales and arpeggios that you can choose to learn such as Blues scales, and the Pentatonic scale; plus there's quite a lot more in this book that you don't see as part of exam material from the different exam boards.

I also love that there is a section focusing on the different modal scales, and some of these are easier to follow than others. They are seven Modal scale variations, and they are :-

- Ionian

- Dorian

- Phrygian

- Lydian

- Mixolydian

- Aeolian

- Locrian

This book is endless, and I would recommend it to any flute player whose looking to develop their learning and playing further. If you are working through the practical music exams then I would recommend using book in addition to any scale book that has been chosen by your exam board.