What skills are we gaining when we learn to play scales and arpeggios? It's not that I don't like doing this - quite the opposite, but I wonder what they are for, lol. Sorry if it's a noddy question but I am new to all of this.

Magic

No apologies needed! You're learning the basics of the instrument. Scales let you get your tone even throughout all registers, and monitor intonation. Much of the flute repertoire also contains passages based heavily on scales and arpeggios of different types. Fragments of scales show up particularly often in baroque and classical music, but are also important in music from other eras. If you can play the scales these fragments are associated with, the passages become much easier to recognize and play. Scales and arpeggios are the very most basic parts of music (after individual notes, of course).

Exactly what Chris said. You can see a "difficult" passage in a piece, and say to yourself...oh wait, that is just a B minor scale starting on D instead of B. My personal opinion on arpeggios is that they are a a tone exercise as well as a flexibility exercise. Actually, practicing scales and arpeggios can let you work on anything you want. If you have a hard time with technique like maybe making a clean transition between high B natural and C, practicing apreggios can help you clean that up too. You can use them to practice single, double, and triple tonguing. The options are limitless. I personally also enjoyed scales to the point that I could play Db major 3 octaves in High School, and by the time I went to college I had all major scales memorized for the entire range of my flute. It kind of shocked my flute teacher a bit, but then again it shocked me everyone didn't like scales that much.

What Chris said. And, frankly, I don't think teachers make this clear to students--I certainly always hated scales and no one ever hit me upside the head and explained to me why I might want to practice them.

James Galway has some nice articles and mp3's about scale playing, how to practice them, and WHY to practice them on his website:

www.thegalwaynetwork.com

Click on Audio/Video on the menu bar for the mp3's; there are some newer mp3's in a big white box in the middle of the home page; and the articles are available here:

http://www.thegalwaynetwork.com/notes/chatnote.htm

if you play scales and arpeggios like they are a piece of music, they become a piece of music, just look at the music of Mozart. Scales, arpeggios and all other theory are the grammar of music, the more you learn the more you will be able to play. If you play your scales boring, then they will be boring, if you make them musical they will be fun.

Try this, next time you play a scale pattern, give it a name, such as "slithering snake" or "rushing water", etc.

it all helps you when you get to the harder stuff, and helps you get round the fingerings. I know what you mean thinking they are pointless, I hate them loads especially that i've been playing my flute for ages now. But i'm quite new at playing the bassoon and all the scales and arpeggios are really helping me to get my fingers around the awkward notes.

Oh thanks the replies are all brilliant! I had already discovered the Sir James Galway site and listened to his scale playing and hints on practising as you would play and it instantly changed my practising method. I didn't realise that scales and arpeggios appear in classical music as I am new to it - I've kind of hopped over the fence from folky/jazzy leanings only to discover classical music to be far more exhilarating both to listen to and to try to play. I feel very pleased to think that scales and arpeggios will appear in the pieces I will play and that I will begin to recognise them. I actually really enjoy learning them, lol, they give me a good feeling when they take off on their own and I play them without reading them so I do listen up more to my tone. Reading a piece of music seems much harder for me at the moment as the reading takes over and I lose coordination of everything else. Also I feel playing a whole piece of music requires something creative from me which, as a student, I can't always produce.

Magic