Practicing scales is important. The music we play is mostly scales (and diatonic intervals/chords). Practicing scales is usually seen as boring and dull. Practicing music is usually seen as fun and rewarding.

Does anyone else see the same thing as I do? If all these things are true (and they may be) - there is something wrong because, as the kids say, the math isn’t mathing here… or is it?

Looking a little deeper, perhaps there is something that we can do to make our scale practice a little more engaging. I don’t mean to suggest fault with the Bearmann, Klose, Langenus, Stievenard, or any of the traditional scale books that we use. They are thoughtful and thorough ways to learn scales. At the same time, they are a little dull at times, right?

Scales that move from root to root, between low E and high G using the highest chord tone (or scale note) available are built around a static key center and/or the register limitations of the clarinet. While this is a way to learn scales on the clarinet, maybe we need to bring more into the fold.

My first question (and I already know a couple of good answers although I am sure that there are more) is: How do other instruments related to the clarinet practice scales? My second question is: do they end up with better (cleaner or faster) technique?

Let's take a look at our woodwind friends:

1) Flute - Flutists tend to have far faster and cleaner technique than we do.

2) Oboe - They are too busy working on reeds to enter into this conversation

3) Bassoon - Have you seen how many places they need to put their thumb? It’s not fair to talk about them here.

4) Saxophone - Saxophonists tend to have faster and cleaner technique than we do.

It looks like we need to run an investigation here. Perhaps it’s just that we have a more technically challenging instrument than flutists and saxophonists. After all, they overblow an octave and we have that 12th to contend with.

Hold on… that sounds like a justification, or as a good friend of mine calls it, “loser talk.” That may be a harsh characterization, but I think I get what he means and in this case, I agree with him.

Now is the time to stand up and meet this heretofore unannounced challenge! I am going to share some feelings here. They are strong feelings. I don’t mean to push anybody to feel argumentative, but I have to speak my truth.

The flute tradition has a stronger way of going about playing scales. The saxophone tradition, particularly in the jazz world, has a stronger way of going about playing scales.

I want to share with you an exercise that I have been playing on the clarinet for years that is based on a flute exercise. This flute exercise has been at the ground floor of flute technique development for generations. Why don’t we have anything like it? I don’t know - but you are welcome - I fixed it.

Ok, so you want to know what makes it better? I will tell you.

1) It moves up by half steps. This means that we are not stuck moving through the venerable circle of 4ths/5ths. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with the circle of 4ths/5ths - it has done us right for hundreds of years. But wow, it is nice to have another way of putting these scales together.

2) It is only five notes of the scale at a time, but it does yield all finger patterns in each scale (if you play the whole thing). We rarely play an entire scale in order in a piece of music, particularly from root to root, so why do we almost always practice them that way?

3) The musical connection between scales in this exercise encourages us to phrase during the exercise. Our tradition primarily has us playing tonic-based/static key patterns that have no harmonic movement from tension to release. The primary interest of the music we play is how it moves from tension to release.

4) The exercise has us playing scale patterns that start NOT on the tonic half the time. We rarely get to put that in our practice routine, even though many of the scale patterns we play in music do NOT start on the tonic.

This scale exercise - I call it five-note scales - will offer something new and refreshing to your routine. Your technique will get a fresh look at old material and be better off for it.

Again, I am certainly NOT suggesting you abandon any of our stalwarts, but only to add something new to make your work in our own tradition even more fruitful.

Happy Clarineting!

click the image for the free scales