If you don’t have the Moyse book Daily Exercises you need it. It has the same size and shape of Taffanel and Gaubert: short and wide.
I didn’t discover this book until later in my college life. Someone had left it in a practice room so read through it. Wow! I immediately liked it and knew I needed to get my own copy. When you come across a new scale book that presents the material in a new way you snap it up.
Give Me Moyse!
Moyse gives the player a schedule to follow that takes one through the exercises. I love following this kind of 30-day schedule. I like to use those 30 scheduled days and spread them out over 30 weeks. It works well for my methods of practicing. I would really recommend that you start by following the given schedule. But once one is comfortable with the material, then mixing and matching is the way to go.
Scales in 3rds?
There is nothing totally astounding about the scale exercises. But looking at the scales and practicing them in the order of 3rd’s, 4th’s, 5th’s, 6th’s, and 7th’s can reap big rewards. We can all play our scales in 3rds. All my younger students play their scales in 3rds. Everyone has learned to do that. But can you play them in the other groupings listed above? I had rarely attempted to do that. Up to that point my scales were in 3rds and when I read through the scales in fourths or fifths, or sixths, sevenths, they were considerably trickier. It took some time to garner speed. I also learned that I had a lot of glitches when I did my scales in another grouping because they were not patterns that my fingers had grown used to.
Challenge Yourself
So, take a look at Moyse’s Daily Exercises and look at those different scales. Work on them for speed. Work on them to have smooth fingers. You will find that’s it’s going to help you in sight reading and playing any of your technical exercises. Because it’s going through so many different patterns of scales that are used in your solos.
Try it. You’re going to like working on your scales in Daily Exercises.
Have fun!
Doctor Flute
Watch me demonstrate this:
FluteTips 48 Building Your Technique by Practicing Moyse Scales
