A comprehensive guide to creating a violin scales routine

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Playing scales is an essential aspect of learning to play the violin. It not only helps in building dexterity, intonation, and overall technique.

Whether you're a beginner or an intermediate player, incorporating a scales routine in your practice is a key part of improving your playing.

In this episode of Violin Class, I share my personal scales routine, which you can use as inspiration when creating your own.

Why Practice Scales?

Scales are the building blocks of the music that we play as violinists.. Practicing scales can help improve intonation, finger placement, and overall technique. Plus, it's a great way to warm up before diving into more advanced pieces.

Creating a scales routine

We can use our scales to focus on different aspects of our technique.

Start with SLOW scales

It's important to start slow so you can focus on proper technique, and so that you have time to listen to each note very carefully.

Use long, sustained bows and focus on the sound quality- the goal is to have a consistent and resonant sound for each and every note.

Set your metronome at 60 bpm, and play through your scale in whole notes.

Experiment with different bowing patterns

Try using different bowing patterns, such as:

Slurred bow patterns
Detache
Legato
Martele bows

This will help you develop control and precision in your bowing.

Incorporate different rhythms

Just like different bowing patterns, you can experiment with different rhythms, such as dotted rhythms or triplets.

This will not only help to improve your sense of rhythm and timing, but it will ultimately help you play faster since you’ll have looked at different combinations of notes at varying rhythms.

Gradually increase tempo

Once you've mastered the scales at a slower tempo, gradually increase the speed. The video above walks you through the Galamian acceleration scale, which is a pattern violinists use to increase tempo.

Make sure to maintain all of the technical things you’ve been focusing on as you play faster.

Practice with a metronome

Using a metronome will help you develop a consistent sense of timing, as well as create an easy-to-follow system as you cover varying keys and tempi.

A good place to start is 60 bpm, and then increase in multiples of 3 or 4.

Keeping track of your scales

One helpful tool for practicing scales is a scales chart. A scales chart is a visual guide that shows you all of the different scales and arpeggios in a particular key.

The goal is to get through of the major and minor scales, and once you’ve learned them, to practice them on rotation.

If you spend a week on each key, in 24 weeks you’ll have played through and practice all of your scales.

This helps to keep things manageable, and to prevent you from repeating the easy scales. Without some sort of system, we tend to spend more time on easy keys like G major, while skipping over F# minor or other trickier keys.

I cover the context of how to structure your overall technique practice, and where scales should fit in my Violin Warmups Guide

Download here

Final Thoughts

Practicing scales is an essential part of becoming a better violinist.

You can use my scales routine as inspiration for designing your own, which will help you to improve your technique, intonation, and overall playing ability.

Remember —

Start slow
Consistency is key
Rotate your scales and technique exercises regularly