I sense the tempeature rising here 
So hereās some water/petrol for the flames.
I like to play a chromatic scale from low D to as high as it gets (mileage will vary with whistle). This is quite fun 
and helps me not forget those little used sharps and flats.
brian
Do not draw that conclusion too easily Wombat, music as a lot of players would play it is tune based. I sometimes work with Kitty Hayes on new tunes, she may have heard on the radio the day before, she has the tune in her head and plays it on the concertina. I may suggest a different key and off she goes. Ofcourse you will have to know your instrument to be able to do that but it is not a scale based thing, itās purely bringing out the tune in your head. Very few of the older musicians have much knowledge of scales. Or have use for it but they have the ear.
I really doubt whether we have a substantive disgreement here, Peter. The skill of Kitty Hayes that you decribe here is pretty much what I was describing when I transfer a tune from one instrument to another. Also, like most people whoāve been playing nearly all their life, I can change key without great difficulty or just play a tune thatās in my head. Others can do this better than I can; I wouldnāt like to do this for an audience on some instruments although on others it wouldnāt be a problem. I donāt consciously think of scales or intervals when I do it. It sounds to me like weāre talking about exactly the same practical skill here. So I think what we have is just a disagreement about terminology.
Whether or not Iām right to think of the skill as a practical (note, not theoretical) knowledge of scales, I certainly donāt think that doing exercises is the only way to attain it. As I said, my own approach is much more tune based than scale basedāat the conscious levelāand my approach to concertina is wholly tune based. One thing Iām sure weād both agree on is that you need a good ear and you need to know your instrument in the sense of knowing how to make the sounds you hear in your head. Iād say that involves a practical knowledge of scales but I donāt for a moment think that thatās all thatās involved and, if someone wants to reserve talk of scales for more theoretically self-conscious abilities, I really donāt mind even though Iād be mystified about their reasons.
I donāt know quite what to think of these things you know. I have never met any good traditionalplayer who ever practiced scales thatās for sure. But Martin Rochford often sat me down and heād play the same tune in three or four different keys on the fiddle just to show the different moods that would bring out. I just donāt think I can fully comprehend how the mind works of those players who have had their music from the cradle, acquired as they have their first language, thereās something there that you just canāt recreate by practising your scales. I mentioned Kitty there because each and every time she astonishes me with an overwhelming and completely natural musicality and understanding of the material she plays.
I see that too by the way in a lot of the young musicians that come to me for piping lessons, they have an insight and a quick ear that you only get from being around this music a lot and preferably from a young age.
It was not my intention to start an argument over this seemingly non-controversial topic! Anyway, Iām going to practise scales the way Wombat had suggested, because I feel that this will help me identify phrases/note sequences that I gloss over when I usually do tunes, and repetition builds fluency.
Janice, I donāt believe that learning scales before learning music is a strictly Western notion. I know that even in Indian music (both Carnatic and Hindustani), working on scales is a proven and traditionally adopted way to get better acquainted with notes and phrases. Maybe talasiga can shed some light on this.
But that being said, the bulk of my practice time will still go to playing tunes that Iāve learnt because theyāre SO much more fun than scales 
! Doing scales somehow lends an air of rigor and solemnity to practice. Iāll just have to pay more attention to those weak spots and work harder on them.
~nash
It is hard to know how to describe this skill once it transcends just reproducing what has been memorised. Itās that flexibility that makes me want to say that traditional musicians have knowledge of scales, even though theyāve never done scale exercises. (We all talk in prose, whether or not we even know what that means.)
The distinction I have in mind is with the musician who learns tunes by ear in a particular key but who canāt then transpose them, even with a few mistakes or fumbles, and who has to learn new tunes laboriously note by note. Thatās tune based, and the musician might will know his or her instrument well in the sense of being able to play technically difficult passages and sound good.
Edited to add the following remarks: I think one reason why I want to say that the musician with transposing flexibility āknows their scalesā is that Iād find it offensive if some classically trained musician denied that they knew their scales simply because they donāt do the execises or talk scale talk. They have the practical skills and thatās all they need.
Nashradus, thereās nothing to be ashamed of here. Weāre having a civilised discussion of a cluster of sensible questions. One post of mine expressed obvious annoyance, but it wasnāt personal, I meant no ill will and I gave my reasons for being annoyed. If my reasons can be shown to be wrong, Iāll graciously accept the fact. This isnāt a flame war.
OK, let me rephrase this and call on British musicologist Christopher Small once more who states, āThe majority of the worldās music cultures are not based on a theoritical knowledge of those cultureās music. The Western European art music concept of musical exercises is antithical to those musical practices.ā i . e. Music is something that people DO. Music philosopher David Elliott concurs-music is a praxis. Elliott states that 95% of the worldās cultures do not base their musical practices on a therotical knowledge of the music, and that this includes the practice of Irish traditional music (see his 1995 book āMusic Mattersā for more).
So I stand by my original post-the idea of practicing scales/arpeggios is a Western concept that people mistakenly try to import into IrTrad. Peterās posts prove this point. I still believe that if one is going to learn Irish trad in an inauthentic environment (i. e. anywhere but Ireland), then it is best to try and duplicate the original practice as closely as possible.
Furthermore, regarding Indian musical practices (and I am not on expert on this) I was under the impression that it is a practice passed on from master to apprentice, that the apprentice lives with the master for yearsā¦and that although it does involve extensive knowledge of the music, it is more important to have a personal knowledge of that music. This is the difference between knowing THAT (theoritical knowledge) and knowing HOW (skill or tacit knowledge). The two are intertwined, but I was under the impression that a personal knowledge of the music (tacit knowledge or experiential knowledge) was valued more than theoritical knowledge. As I said, however, I am not an expert on Indian music, so perhaps someone else could enlighten us. And apologies if this post seems OT.
Janice, my apologies too if my initial response to you sounded unnecessarily shrill. I think we only have a very slight disagreement here, but one we both feel passionately about. The reason I got annoyed was that nothing in the thread suggested that nashradus was exclusively interested in ITM or any form of folk at all. But, putting that aside, you raise an interesting issue and this is certainly the board for straying down side alleys. 
I donāt disagree with you that playing music is entirely a practical skill. But I think this is true in jazz and classical music as much as it is in folk music. People donāt play scale exercises there for fun; they play them to aqcuire a practical skill that, if I am right, is learnt in folk traditions in other ways. Iād also claim that itās part of their ear training.
Talk of knowledge of scales on the part of traditional musicans isnāt meant (by me anyway) to be talk, from the inside, about how the practitioners think about what they are doing. I was also at pains to point out that when I play folk musics I donāt consciously think of scales either. Rather, itās talk (from the outside) about what skill the musician who can instantly transpose has acquired. (When I talk like that I donāt have my folk musicians hat on, I have my ethnomusicologistās hat on.) Iām not entirely sure I know what to call it and I got the impression that Peter wasnāt either. Certainly some classically trained musicians who can transpose by eye canāt transpose by ear. As far as Iām concerned, they donāt have the practical skill that matters in folk music but they do have a related one that doesnāt matter in folk music.
As for the cited philosopher and ethnomusicologist, I would agree with their view concerning some attempts to impose Western theory but disagree about others. It would be a case by case matter. The idea that musical notation can replace ear training would be just nutty. OTOH, the idea that folk traditions can be illuminated in part by adapting western vocabulary to describe them seems fine so long as one is fully aware of the limitations. But a lot of people forget that classical and jazz music canāt just be read off the page straight; in those fields you need practical training in phrasing and this reveals limitations in the notation to convey every important nuance as well.
Unlike most people here who have a theoretical knowledge of music, I actually started out playing folk music by ear and only started to learn heavy-duty theory later. But Iāve never felt that what Iāve learnt has hindered me in any way. As a child I had to fight against the prevalent misconception that, because I couldnāt then read, I wasnāt playing music at all. But later I saw value in learning theory and have never regretted it, but at every step I questioned to what extent it applied to what I already knew.
Maybe it should be automatically assumed but letās face it in matters of beginnerās questions it always boils down to the same āscaleā ārollsā ornamentationā etc.
If beginners here generally [and believe you me they do all the time] are so keen on learning techniques so specific to the one kind of music whatās wrong assuming that generally they are intending to go that road. Whatās the point of learning ornamentation if youāre not going to play diddly music? The ornamentation is music specific, not whistle specific.
Speaking as a rank beginner (4 months with the whistle) I have to say I thought this post was incredibly helpful. I printed it out and took it home. Last night, I spent several hours with slow-downer software, pencil and paper, and transcribed a particularly nice set of hornpipes from a CD. After playing it through a few times, I picked up Wombatās advice and played the scales he mentionedā¦
Like an āahaā moment, my ears recognised the patterns Wombat spoke of, and in spite of all the tutorial books and music-theory books, I finally began to understand structure in the tunes Iāve been memorising. And I understood the concept of melody lines following ākeysā and chord-progressions. Click. 25 years ago I taught myself rhythm guitarā¦I knew all the chords and could jam with the best of them, but playing āleadā was definitely out. Couldnāt read music thenā¦can barely do so now.
So I can also understand what Wombat is articulating in the other posts. Great traditional players might not practice scales per se, and perhaps there are many who could never translate scales to a stave on paper. But they surely understand the structure of the music theyāre playing, and thus implicitly they understand the fundamental unit that a musicologist would call a āscaleā, and in all the keys their instrument can play.
At the moment, Iām halfway to being what Wombat described as a āmusician who learns tunes by ear in a particular key but who canāt then transpose themā. I say halfway because Iām nowhere near confident enough to call meself a āmusicianā.
Iām learning āparrot-fashionā, from CDs and tunebooks and tutorials. This does not make me a musician, in my opinion, and certainly it doesnāt make me a Traditional Musician. How can it, when as yet I really donāt understand the fundamental structure of the tunes Iām parroting? My tape-recorder does a better job of itā¦
As for wondering whether or not the Wise Ones of Yore, the elves or IrTrad, ever practiced scales, well, who can say for sure? What is sure is that the music thatās preserved today came from somewhere, and the first elf to compose a tune that spread aurally down through the ages clearly knew his or her stuffā¦and thus implicitly understood musical structure. If they didnāt, itād all sound like me noodling on a high D in the evenings back when I first picked up the whistle.
2p
Some observations. Celtic music is Western. Nobody is suggesting
that practicing scales and arpeggios should be done before
learning tunes (this goes to your earlier post). Practicing
scales and arpeggios is practice, not theory.
I donāt know what it would be to āimportā this practice into
ITM. I suppose it would be for people who play ITM
to practice scales and arpeggios as part of improving
their mastery of their instrument. Maybe thatās a mistake,
but I donāt know what it is. Whatās the problem?
Peter points out, and is in a position to know, that good ITM
players in Ireland donāt do this. But why shouldnāt
we? Thereās got to be some practical downside, and
I donāt know what it is.
In my own experience this much seems true. Practicing scales
and arpeggios, which I began doing several years after
I started playing flute and whistle, increases dexterity,
speed, and (on the flute) quality of tone. It appears to
do this more so than playing just the tunes. Itās boring,
but it seems to help me master the instrument.
On the other hand it doesnāt affect the way I play tunes,
it isnāt as though I sound like Iām playing scales
when Iām playing a hornpipe. Maybe if I played
scales for thousands of hours, but thereās little
fear of that!
If you want an interesting theoretical claim that could use some motivation, itās that if one is going to learn
ITM in a non-authentic environment, itās best toduplicate the original practice as closely as possible.
Why, exactly? Take the case of practicing scales and arpeggios.
These arenāt part of the original practice, apparently.
Still, why not practice them?
Best, Jim
Couldnāt agree more on the structure bit, I think though the basic unit for the traditional musician is the phrase, the building blocks of the melody are the anchor.
And to edit in a reply to Jim, the down side of learning arpeggios and scale is that you will neglect the phrase structure in the tune when you approach a tune as a set of arpeggios.
As an example take the Lark in the Morning. Pretty much arpeggio structures and am I wrong to think your local session will play:
dB ļ½AFA AFA ļ½BGB BdB ļ½AFA AFA ļ½fed BdB
as in two neat groups of three notes to the bar?
My local would break it up as
{dB ļ½AFA A}{ FA ļ½BGB B}{dB ļ½AFA A}{ FA ļ½fed B }
each a distinct little phrase with two notes leading into it .
That I think sums up your essential difference.
To be honest, I simply didnāt know what the intended application was. I just took the initial question at face value. The exercises I gave were just stock ones youād find in any tutor, give or take an idea of my own in one or two places. The fact I can think up an exercise doesnāt mean I play it. As for ornamentation, I gave one exercise just in case, but it was picked up from an Irish musician giving a formal class. On his Homespun tape, Cathal McConnell suggests an exercise for learning rolls but, since it had nothing to do with scales, I didnāt mention it here.
Would this happen if you played arpeggio exercises in suitable dance rhythms? Must it happen?
I do think it will happen if youāre not used to playing the music and understand itās structure. Yes.
I added a little tune example above, forgive my new keyboard for rendering the barlines as squares.
And to edit in a reply to Jim, the down side of learning arpeggios and scale is that you will neglect the phrase structure in the tune when you approach a tune as a set of arpeggios.
Iāll watch out for that, thanks. I donāt feel much at risk, honestly.
I see these as exercises to improve dexterity on
the flute, not as ways of getting to understand the music.
I barely have a grasp of things musical; for me,
arpeggios are other tunes. I find the exercise
helpful, but peripheral.
By the by: When I was a kid I had piano lessons and my
teacher made me play scales, etc.
I found them lovely and began playing them
in a flowing way, with feeling and
emphasis. This ended the lessons,
the teacher deciding I had no sense of rhythm.
I figure Iām safe. Best
Wombat, we are essentially in agreement then. I too came to IrTrad as an adult trained in Western classical music. Was I surprised to find out that that training was virtually useless when it came to playing IrTrad (as a matter of fact, in a lot of ways it was a hinderence). This is not to say that that knowledge is not valuable, as I do understand the theoritical underpinnings of the music, however, as it is not part of the IrTrad practice it is not essential knowledge for proficiency in that practice.
We bring our own perceptions/misconceptions to what we do. I have taught adult tin whistle beginners for the past ten years, at both a Summer School and a Community Music School here in Canada. In my group lessons with rank beginners, the very first thing that I teach them is the D Major scale on the whistle. This is NOT because I think they need to know it, but because they THINK they need to have some āexercisesā prior to learning tunes on the whistle (because of their own preconceived perceptions as they are only aware of Western musical practices). So I teach them a D Major scaleā¦they are paying to be there, they are adults, and this knowledge makes them happy (yes, I am pandering to them). And it is an artificial situation, being a week long camp.
However, after Iāve taught them the scale I leave it, never to come back to it again, instead teaching them (by rote) an easy polka. I emphasize that if they really want to learn IrTrad they will only really be able to do so by listening, listening, listening, and to forget the notion of āscales/arpeggios,etc.ā Of course, this is only what I do, and how I learned IrTrad on my own, and others are free to do as they wish!
Iāve also been a music teacher/band director in the Western tradition for the past twenty years and I would not begin teaching my band students in this way, as in the Western tradition, being able to decode written notation is a vital skill in that practice. One also needs technical exercises to be able to function in Western practice. These two ātraditionsā are an essential part of the practice of Western European art music known as āband.ā
I think that people need to be aware that different musical practices have different musical traditions, applicable to those practices.
Jim-āCelticā music is not the same as Western European art music (The term āCelticā music is an artificial one, according to Dr. Kari Veblen. She notes in her study of Irish Summer Schools that, āthe Celtic revival was identified as a marketing scheme, appealing to modern humanityās quest for simple, agrarian, and mystical roots.ā). While IrTradās roots are situated in āWestern musicā it is not a Western European art music, for many reasons. Two musical examples:
Just some thoughts.
Thanks for explaining Janice. I really suspected fairly soon that we only had a very slight difference of opinion here and so it turns out.
When I started learning to read I had the opposite problem to the one you mention. After a couple of times through with the music, Iād find that Iād memorised the tune I was learning. Iād try to follow the music but, since I didnāt need it, my attention would wander. Then Iād go for my sax lesson. My teacher would stop me to make a point about phrasing and say ..āgo back to the F#ā and when I struggled to find it he realised that I had only been pretending to read. Still, he knew why and was sympathetic.
I think this difference in direction is probably behind the difference in attitude. You are acutely aware of what, from the folk point of view, would be bad habits because you had to eliminate them painfully in your own playing. I had a completely different set of bad habits when it came to playing jazz, although the ear development you get learning folk styles is crucial in jazz so I never developed disrespect for my old ways. Once Iād learnt to read I never felt that I was handicapped since I knew the importance of phrasing, ear training and listening and never really expected from theory or exercises any more than it could usefully give me. But I did at last feel that I finally understood better how tunes were put together in exactly the way Gary just expressed. So Iām inclined to think that you and Peter had that understanding to begin with and perhaps take it for granted in much the way I take learning by ear for granted.
Well, maybe; maybe not.
Just one tiny data point: Although Iāve been playing for a whole month, I still consider myself a beginner. 
And, although Iāve asked questions about ornamentation, Iām really not the least bit interested in getting very deeply into ITM. Itās the whistle Iām interested in. Although Iāve been working on several slow airs and a couple of hornpipes, I also play lots of Scottish, American, and Chinese folk songsāand even a few blues tunesāthat I already have in my head.
I started on guitar back in 1960, when I was in college. This was during the Great Folk Scare, but there was not yet much available in the way of instructional materials. We listened to recordings and tried to figure out what the heck was going on. I could play all the chords, but that was about it. My big breakthrough came when I switched roommates and got myself a real live music major. I forced him to explain about keys, scales, modes, chord structure, and chord progressions, and I found that I was then able to learn by ear much more quickly, because I was able to anticipate some of the possibilites.
As the only guitarist playing a mishmash of all kinds of āfolkā music at a small Central Texas college, I would never have made the kind of progress I did without some theory.
I still practice a great variety of scale patterns on the guitar as a way to maintain dexterity. They are particularly useful on the guitar as a way of learning to separate pick direction from relative string location. I find that the same kinds of patterns are helping me with odd fingering patterns going across octaves on the whistle.
When I practice, Iām building physical skills that let me forget about the physical aspect of playing, so that I can concentrate on content. I donāt have time to be reborn as a little baby in Ireland (even if I did believe in reincarnation), and at the age of 61, I probably have only about 50-60 years left to learn this instrument.