Start with your scales

I was taught to start my music practice by playing my scales. Starting with your scales:

• Grounds you in the practice. The basic relationship between you and the instrument and the sound you can make
• Reinforces and enhances the automatic movements that become how you play.
• Takes you through the full range of motions of play.
• Removes the barrier to knowing where to start because where to start is always the same. You pick up your instrument, you play a scale and you have begun.

Starting with your scales doesn’t just apply to instruments. It applies to any work where you develop a practice, be that a practice of design, facilitation or performance. 

In the technique I call Professional Palette in my conceptual design training, I encourage participants to warm up to a design exercise by quickly drawing through all the common typologies for the project they are working on.

It applies whether you are designing a bridge span, an investigation, a workshop or a dance performance. 

Make it your default to start with your scales: go through the range of motions, get all the pens out and put them on the table, familiarise yourself with the full breadth of your tools, and then begin.