Scales - in a Fun Way!

The FJH First Scale Book by Victoria McArthur and Edwin McLean is a great way to introduce younger students to scales.  This book is also helpful for students who would be intimidated by many versions of a scale.  Those students who don't need to know specific versions for competitions or auditions would be well-served by this book.

One of the things that I love about this book is the star chart on page 2.  There are stars to color in for the different skills in the book:

Major Pentascales - Parallel Motion

Major Pentascales- Contrary Motion

Major Arpeggios and Chords

Major Cadences

Minor Pentascales - Parallel Motion

Minor Pentascales - Contrary Motion

Minor Arpeggios and Chords

Minor Cadences

Each skill has a star for MM=120 and MM=200.  

Page 3 offers a description of how to play pentascales and how pentascales are made.  The next several pages explain major and minor, as well as arpeggios and chords.  The following pages include a written version of the parallel pentascale, cross-hand arpeggio, tonic chord played broken and blocked hands separately, and the I V I and I V7 I cadences.  This includes all the keys.

The second part of the book has another Star chart.  This includes the Major and Minor Scales, Arpeggios, Chords, and Cadences for C, G, D, A, E, B and F. Each skill has three stars MM=108, MM = 144, and MM=200.   This section does explain how to form a whole scale, chord inversions, and the I IV V7 I cadences.  The scope of this section is limited.

The star chart makes this book fun, and the limited scope of this makes it a great introduction.  This would be perfect for someone in the second book of a method, whether that's Book 1 (for methods that start with a Preparatory book) or Book 2.

This is available at Sheet Music Plus for $5.95