Hello Flutiful Friends,
I've been sharing with you some ways my students are working to get great results and to build confidence in playing their scales in the upper registers. In our area, high school students typically will play scales 3 octaves if possible.
As part of our studio focus on the high register of the scales we are also going to be working on reading and playing at the extreme top register more. To help students be able to read the high notes they are playing at the top of their scales, I wrote all the major and minor scales full range (up to D4) in the addendum to my book Flutiful Etudes
Another focus to help students become more comfortable in the high register is to incorporate more playing in this register into their everyday exercises. One suggestion is to encourage them to play exercises an octave higher than written (which is another great skill to develop!)
My students will also be working on exercises from the Flutiful Etudes book. I purposefully wrote several of the etudes to include the extreme upper register to give students in this proficiency group more experience reading and playing these notes in a real piece of music. Some etudes you might want to look at include Numbers 12, 14, and 16 that go to the Ab3, Number 23 that goes to the G#3, Numbers 1, 18 and 21 go to A3; Numbers 19 & 20 to to B3; and Numbers 9 and 11 go to C4. Most other etude books do not go above Ab or A.
My students are a group of dedicated young people (and a few adults) that are such joy to work with. They are not afraid to do the hard work necessary to get better on the top of their scales. Next week, I'll tell you how to get a free packet of the materials I'm using with them each week that saves lesson time when explaining the top of scale exercises, and it also includes a table for them to record their practice!
I hope you are finding these tips helpful!