C Major Scale

When studying scales, we often play a certain pattern in a variety of keys throughout the practice period. This a good and comprehensive design but hardly the only way.


Especially for improvising players, a deeper immersion into a particular key will provide greater command. Pat Harbison told me that he has his students play exercises in only one key for twenty minutes and then improvise in that key (without modulations) for five minutes. 


The following collection of C major scales from the last 150 years of instructional material has been gathered and edited to that end. 


But that is beginning of the exercise, not the end. The first obvious thing to do is transpose these patterns into all the other keys - but stay in one key per day. You don’t have to start at the beginning and push your way to the end. Start anywhere and jump around if you wish - but do it for a twenty-minute practice period. There is enough material here that it should never get stale.