Scale practice is a staple in any musician's daily routine.  However, getting a young student to practice their scales daily can be quite difficult.  For many students (not just young ones) playing a scale can be the most boring and tedious thing.  Often times scale practice will be replaced by playing another piece of music or just skipped all together.  Nothing changes, it's the same notes played the same way -- which often leads to the students' lack of interest.

Here are a few suggestions to keep scale practice fresh.  I've been doing these ideas with my Suzuki students on their Book 1 Tonalizations (scales) for over a year now with amazing success!

All of my students have heard this one:  ”Ok, great!  Now see if you can do it three times in a row.”  I am a firm believer in the power of three.  However, it is more then just playing a passage three times in a row.

Problem solving and identifying the solution are also important steps.  Without those, you won’t know what to reinforce and the repetitions will be meaningless.