Saturday, February 12, 2011

NAF Major Scale Fingering

In all of the previous articles about scales we've delved a little bit into how major diatonic scales are constructed but not how to play them. Some of my students asked me recently about how a major scale would be fingered so I thought I'd make this available to everyone.
The first thing to remember is that the basic scale on a NAF is a 5-note, or pentatonic 1-3-4-5-7 scale. The so-called "Minor Pentatonic". Although for most of you this is common knowledge, it's worth pointing it out since any full diatonic (7-note) major scale will have to have crossed fingering.

THE MINOR PENTATONIC SCALE
Very quickly let's review the NAF Minor Pentatonic scale. NAF-Pentatonic-Minor-3 As most of you know, this is pretty easy to play. Starting with all the holes covered you lift one finger at a time beginning with the bottom finger, working your way up the flute, but never lifting the 4th hole from the bottom. In this scale it always stays covered.
A 6-NOTE MAJOR SCALE
If we want to play a Major scale starting on the root note of the flute (all holes covered) we can only get a partial 6-note major scale.

Read the full article and see the finger charts

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