We offer a range of resources focusing on technical practice for melody instruments. This is focused practice on the skills that underpin our tune playing, and may include:

• scales and arpeggios
• finger pattern exercises, focusing on patterns that commonly appear in the folk repertoire
• workouts on specific issues such as ornamentation, tone production or instrument-specific skills
• playing familiar material in different keys
• using a tune as inspiration for a set of technical exercises to build dexterity, and to explore variations.

The exercises are aimed at players of all melody instruments. They are presented over the whole range of notes commonly found in folk tunes (from low G to high B). Low notes only occur at the start and end of exercises, so the exercises can be easily truncated if your instrument doesn’t go down to G.

This is a growing collection of resources. The following packs are currently available:

• Exercises in G major
• Exercises in D major
• Exercises in A major
• Exercises in E major
• Exercises in F major
• Exercises in C major
• Tune pack: Market Chorus (practicing in different keys, exploring variation in a simple melody)
• Fourth Finger workout 1 (for fiddle players)

We also held a Summer Practice Challenge in 2025 where participants collectively achieved over 50,000 minutes of technical practice, mostly using our resources. Watch this space for similar acitivites in the future.