Paul Harris: Improve Your Scales for Flute

 Hi everyone,

In today's post I'm going to talk about the 'Improve Your Scales' series by Paul Harris, as its great for anyone whose just started learning an instrument or if you have been playing for years and you want to improve on your scales.

Layout

These are laid out brilliantly, as they are clear and easy to follow with explanations for each element for each area to improve your scales. Within each scale area its asks you if you know the notes for both the scale and the arpeggio, finger fitness, scale study, arpeggio study, and an improvisation section. There's also a revision practice section, and this is section that you work with your teacher to get the best out of your scales and scales practice.

Finger Fitness

The 'Finger Fitness' are there to strengthen your fingers, and to also tackle any tricky passages. These exercises should be played in a variety of ways such as legato, detached, staccato, and any form of articulation that you can come up with. You can also add dynamics and also change up the rhythmic patterns. The key to tackle to the 'Finger Fitness' exercises is slow practice until you become more familiar with the exercise.

Scale & Arpeggio Studies

These are just extended exercises, but these are on the more musical and fun side for you to learn and practice.

Have a Go

Paul has given you a few notes to start you off, but this is the section on where you develop your improvisation skills.

Revision Practice

This is where you revise the scales that you have focused on throughout the 'Improve Your Scales' series, and this section occurs throughout the series. The aim of the revision section is gain a more methodical approach to learning and practicing your scales. There's various ways that you can practice your scales, and using different articulation patterns, and the same goes for your arpeggios.

These are a well thought out series of books from Paul Harris, and these will help you to gain the confidence to tackle any scale/s that you are struggling with, and to also give you a better understanding on how to get the best from your scales using a variety of different methods.

The 'Improve Your Scale' series from Paul Harris is also available for a wide variety of musical instruments.