Professor Purdy's Scale Practice Worksheet

Scales and arpeggios are the basis for all tonal classical music, that is why daily 3-octave scale practice is an important habit to cultivate.
Practicing 3-octave scales will:

* Help establish good finger pattern
* Provide shifting and position practice
* Improve intonation
* Give you a more secure knowledge of your fingerboard
* Increase facility
* Improve sight-reading ability

Work on tone quality and basic bowing techniques can also be incorporated into daily scale practice.

The principle of varied repetition increases the benefits of scale practice and makes it more interesting.

Practice variations for scales:
* Separate bows
use a big sound
play very legato

* Work on intonation by checking notes with open strings

* Shift isolations
keep left hand as loose as possible on shifts

* Slurs 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, 12, 24 per bow
keep quarter note constant ( = 60)
* Rhythms

_•_• (long, short, long, short)
•_•_
_•••
•_••
••_•
•••_

* Stopped bows 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 per bow
divide bow equally
helps improve up-bow and down-bow staccato
improves legato (remove stops in bow but retain constant pressure and accurate bow division)

* Spiccato 4, 3, 2, 1 per bow
* Sautille 8, 4, 3, 2, 1 per bow
* Rhythm patterns, Slur patterns, Dynamic patterns

Be creative! Make up your own.