Using Scale Tales with Students

It has been about half a year since Violin Scale Tales came into print, and I have not yet seen any kind of printed review. So in this post I will show how I use the material with students.

I currently have three students working in this book. One is advanced, and can make her way around the fingerboard in the first six positions. The other two have not yet learned to shift out of first position.

My more advanced student is working on the pieces in the book in order, beginning in A minor with "Atlas Moth." As you can see from the first two lines, the piece uses a mixture of sixteenth notes, eighth notes, triplets, and longer note values that require the student to count and change the speed of the bow in order to follow the dynamic contours of the piece. This piece includes a mixture of meters. These changes of meter are necessary for the musical line, and offer a good way to teach the "why" of meter in addition to the "what" of meter.

There are also places in the piece that proceed as normal scales would, with regular rhythm:

Phrasing is built into the music, and dynamics and textures keep things interesting. Thinking about the appearance and behavior of the animals stimulates the musical imagination.  It is fun, for example, to imagine how this very large moth might act during its short life.

The other eleven moth pieces (Elephant Hawk Moth, Io Moth, Rosy Maple Moth, Luna Moth, Garden Tiger Moth, Dysphania Militaris Moth, Cecropia Giant Silk Moth, Twin-Spotted Sphynx Moth, Comet Moth, Cinnabar Moth, and Giant Leopard Moth) bear a family resemblence to the Atlas Moth piece, but each has its own character. "Waltz of the Moths," which comes at the end of the book, an elaboration on "Twin-Spotted Sphinx Moth," makes its way through all of the minor keys beginning in F minor, and going through the circle of fifths.

I started one of my less-experienced students with "Ostrich" in the key of G major. This one is totally in the three-quarter time, and incorporates a chipper tune as well as left-hand pizzicato:

It ends with a scale that uses the whole first-position range of the violin:

"Komodo Dragon," in D major, also uses left-hand pizzicato. It has a lot of drama, because the Komodo Dragon is a dramatic creature. This piece incorporates a more extended scale passage than the other portraits of lizards in the collection ("Armadillo Girdled Lizard," in B major, and "Eastern Collared Lizard," in F-sharp major).

"Emu" is an E-major waltz that is similar to the G-major "Ostrich" above (those large running birds are somewhat similar). And at the end of the book, right before the "Waltz of the Moths,"  a "Waltz of the Emus" runs its way through all the major keys.

All the animals in the collection, including the Green Sea Turtle, Galápagos Tortoise, Royal Python, Barred Owl, Scaly-Breasted Woodpecker, Dwarf Scaly-Tailed Squirrel, and the Screaming Hairy Armadillo are animals that have scales.

I'm having as much fun practicing and teaching these pieces as I did writing them.

There are twenty-eight more musical portraits of animals with scales in the second volume, Advanced Violin Scale Studies, a book that uses the whole range of the violin and twenty-four keys (alternating minor and major, like the first volume). The first-position book can also be used to great advantage on the viola, particularly for violists eager to practice in the second, third, fourth, and fifth positions. They are great for practicing intonation because each piece remains in a single key (though the mode of the major pieces sometimes shifts to the natural minor). Pitches move stepwise up and down, repeat at the unison, or jump the octave. Even in keys with many sharps or many flats it is still easy to hear where the next pitch is going to be.

My hope with this book is that it will help students find that scale playing can be enjoyable, imaginative, and even entertaining. I also hope that it can help "normalize" keys that have many sharps or many flats, and that it can help introduce elements of very basic music theory into lessons.