We are finishing our scale challenge today, on Make Music Day, with the 12th key, Bb major. Congratulations! You have learned all of the major scales, which is a major achievement and something to be very proud of.

For today’s practice, you know what to do—play this scale thoughtfully, with awareness, listen as you play, and don’t rush. See if you can play it perfectly the first time through, by waiting until you are sure of the next note before you play it. This may seem really slow and tedious, but this cultivation of awareness will resonate through everything you play, and elevate the level of your playing. As before, play all of the previous scales that we learned, and assess how much you have grown as a musician in the past 12 weeks. Maybe you will choose to continue this work beyond Make Music Day, with the minor scales, or something else?

The route we took through all the keys was a little unusual, and I hope that this was interesting and stimulated further thought about the order in which you practice. Thank you for joining us, and Happy Make Music Day! #makemusicpractice

Congratulations on making it this far, and this scale, being the one that most people learn first, should be very easy. With this in mind, let’s try our best to give respect to this scale, rather than thinking of it as being simple. Pay close attention to it in the same way you would for the key you find most challenging. Look for new things, and more importantly, listen for new things!

Here are a few things you might try if you find this scale too simple; play it in thirds, fourths and fifths; play it in triads and in sevenths; play it in stacks of fourths (i.e. 1, 4, 7; 2, 5, 8 etc). Challenge yourself to make it interesting, and to find the music contained within the scale.

Next week is the last one, 12 of 12. Great work so far! Don’t forget to tag us if you’re following along with this practice, #makemusicpractice

As planned, the last few scales should be relatively easy, compared to some of the rest that have gone before—the hard part of this challenge is over, in content as well as quantity, and you should be able to enjoy these last few keys and the ease with which you can think and play them.

Once again, work through this scale slowly and thoughtfully, and see how quickly you can memorize it and feel at ease with it. Consider playing this scale in thirds and fourths if it feels very easy to you, to maintain a level of challenge for yourself in your practice.

Remember to tag us if you’re following along!  #makemusicpractice

As we enter the final third of our adventure in all 12 keys, things should be getting easier and feeling more natural to you. Continue to play each of the previous scales at least once every day, and take note of any inconsistencies that present themselves when moving from one key to another. Work to smooth out any unevenness, and as always pay attention to tone and articulation as you play.

See you in D Major! Don’t forget to tag us while you’re practicing,  #makemusicpractice

If you’ve made it this far through the scale challenge, that is great work. I hope you’re already enjoying the benefits of greater flexibility in playing and in thinking, and perhaps a deeper understanding of scales and how they function. You may also have noticed areas where you want to focus your practice, as they are not as strong as other areas, and hopefully you’ve developed a greater commitment to practice in general.

This week we are working on Gb (or F#) major; apply all of the same ideas as in the previous weeks, play through all of the previous scales at least once per day, and see if you can memorize all of them (if you haven’t already done so). Think about how each one sounds, where it sits on your instrument, how you relate to the notes in each scale. Enjoy the work, we are almost there!

See you next week for the next key, and remember to tag us if you’re joining in this challenge, #makemusicpractice

I’m sure by now many of you already have figured out the order in which we are going through the keys, and if so, maybe you’re even working ahead of schedule! We are so close to finishing, so please try to be extra diligent in your practice, work on focusing attention on all aspects of playing, and this 12 week practice will have an enormous beneficial effect on your musicianship.

This week, while playing the new key and all of the previous ones, let’s focus our attention on how each note begins; observe what is happening, and then ask yourself if there is a way to polish and refine the beginnings of your notes, to play them as mindfully as possible. See what change this brings about in the sound of your scales.

Have fun! You’re doing great work. See you next week for the next key, and remember to tag us if you’re joining in this challenge, #makemusicpractice

We are halfway there, this is the 6th of 12 keys. You may have noticed by now how we are working through the keys, and I hope it is interesting and increasing your ability to think outside of the standard cyclic progressions that are the default for things like scale practice. Mental flexibility is just as important as physical technique in music!

As before, let’s work through this scale slowly and mindfully, paying attention to any details that come to your attention. Intersperse all of the previous scales in between repetitions of this one, and try something new this week: pick one scale, and play it in thirds. If you number each degree of the scale, this will look like so: 1-3, 2-4, 3-5, 4-6, 5-7, 6-8. Then reverse this, to descend the scale in thirds. Listen closely, and observe the changes this brings about it how you hear and play the scale.

Have fun! You’re doing great work. See you next week for the next key, and remember to tag us if you’re joining in this challenge, #makemusicpractice

Welcome back to the MMD 2023 scale practice challenge, where we are practicing one major scale per week for 12 weeks leading up to Make Music Day 2023. Next week we will be halfway through, so stick with it, this work will pay off in so many ways.

This week, we are playing B major; as with the previous weeks, we will continue to work thoughtfully, play slowly and with good tone, noticing how we are playing, listening to how it sounds. Once again, we will play each of the previous scales at least once per day, perfectly; let’s change things up a little this week, and play all the scales we have worked on so far in reverse; starting from the top, descend through each scale, and then ascend to finish. Notice how this changes your thoughts, how it affects your technique, and pay attention to all of this. Play more slowly if you need to, remembering that accuracy and clarity are more important than speed.

Thanks for sticking with this practice, and I hope everyone is already feeling the benefits! See you next week for the next key, and remember to tag us if you’re joining in this challenge, #makemusicpractice

Welcome back to the MMD 2023 scale practice challenge, where we are practicing one major scale per week for 12 weeks leading up to Make Music Day 2023. We are getting there, this week we are one third of the way through all 12 major scales! I hope everyone who is following along is enjoying this work, and already feeling the benefit of this focused, disciplined work.

This week, we are playing Db major; all of the guidance from the previous weeks applies, so we will work thoughtfully, play slowly and with good tone, noticing in detail the places where we need to work on our tone, or where we need to go more slowly to keep pace with our thoughts. Once again, we will play each of the previous scales at least once per day, perfectly; if we make a misstep in a scale, we start again, until we have played it right—the tempo doesn’t matter here. To make it interesting, start to intersperse the other scales between this week’s Db scale. You might first play the scale of Db, then play G, Db again, then F, Db again, then Eb, and finish with Db. By doing this you are also working on technical and mental flexibility, which will certainly be very beneficial to your overall command of your instrument.

Thanks for doing this work with us! See you next week for the next key, and remember to tag us if you’re joining in this challenge, #makemusicpractice

Hello to everyone who is following along, and making this practice and part of the preparation for Make Music Day! Today’s post brings us one quarter of the way to our goal of playing scales in all 12 keys, which is already an achievement. Keep up the good work, and know that the benefits of this practice will permeate every aspect of your musicianship.

Today’s scale is Eb major; as with the previous ones we already did, take this one really slow, don’t try to play faster than you can think, and make sure that each and every note is played with intention, with good tone, and clean articulation. Play the previous scales we worked on, G and F, at least once per day, while adding this one in. If you make any mistakes while playing it, don’t just blow through the mistake and continue; rather, stop, analyze what went wrong, visualize yourself playing the scale perfectly, take a deep breath, and try again.

I hope everyone enjoys this practice, and thanks for joining me. See you next week for the next key! And remember to tag us if you’re joining in this challenge, #makemusicpractice