Scales are some of the most fundamental building blocks of Western styles of music, including jazz. As musicians, we’re often told how important it is to practice scales and how useful they are for helping us navigate jazz standards. But too often working on scales and using them while improvising can turn into a dry and uninspiring activity.

In addition, when improvising we don’t want to be thinking about playing scales in a formulaic way. Scales in and of themselves are not musical. But when we think of them as pitch collections, it can open up our understanding of what note choices we can choose from in a given musical scenario. Therefore, wouldn’t it be helpful to approach practicing scales in a variety of different ways?

How can we make scales more musical?

Here are a few strategies to help you incorporate scales into your practicing and improvising in ways that are fun, challenging, varied, and more pleasing to listen to and play:

#1: Vary Your Rhythms

One of the areas where we have the most leverage is with rhythm. We can easily fall into the trap of always practice scales and inserting them into improvisations using the same rhythmic patterns. To avoid this, here are some ideas for varying the way you play scales rhythmically.

Start on Upbeats:

Switch to Triplets:

Mix 8^th Notes and Triplets:

Invent Freer or Looser Melodic Rhythms:

#2: Add Accents and Other Articulations

Even the blandest sounding 8^th-note line can be transformed into a musically exciting idea merely by strategically adding accents, staccato notes, and slurred notes. Ideas to get you started include accenting downbeats, upbeats, set groupings (such as 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, etc.), or random groupings. Here are some examples:

#3: Shape Scales with Dynamics

Too often we play scales all at the same static, dynamic level. Just by playing around with how soft/loud you’re playing can make scales sound more like melodies. Here are some sample ideas:

#4: Add Octave Displacements

If you get tired of playing all of your scales in a step-wise manner, trying displacing notes into different octaves. Doing so makes it sound less like a scale and more like a melody! Here are some examples:

I hope these ideas inspire you to take your use of scales to another level. These aren’t the only ways to reinvigorate scales, so try to come up with your own ideas to transform your scales into more musically interesting melodies. Happy practicing!