#000604
Improvisation for Flute: The Scale/Mode Approach
Andy McGhee
A concise, much-loved method for learning to improvise on the flute, built around the relationship between scales, modes, and the chords they imply. Andy McGhee — a veteran jazz reedman turned longtime Berklee educator — walks the player step by step through the scale/mode system, with exercises, licks, and solos that grow directly out of their underlying harmonies so the results sound natural rather than mechanical. The aim is practical fluency: training the ear and the fingers together until improvising over changes becomes second nature. First published in 1974 and adapted from McGhee's saxophone version, it has served generations of players as a compact, no-frills entry point into jazz improvisation, valued for demystifying how modes and chords actually connect on the instrument.
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The author
Andy McGhee was an American jazz saxophonist and flutist who toured with Lionel Hampton and Woody Herman before joining the Berklee College of Music faculty in 1966, where he taught improvisation to thousands of students. The book distills that classroom experience into a systematic method.
The book
Improvisation for Flute: The Scale/Mode Approach was first published by Berklee Press in 1974 and is closely modeled on McGhee's companion saxophone volume, adjusted for the flute. It teaches the modes, their chord relationships, and how to build lines and solos from them.
How to read it
As a focused, practical workbook rather than a comprehensive theory text. Its strength is clarity and directness — the scale/mode framework is laid out cleanly and reinforced with playable material. Players wanting broader jazz vocabulary, transcription study, or ear-training will pair it with other resources, but as a first structured approach to improvising it remains a solid, enduring choice.
For more context
Berklee's broader improvisation curriculum and standard jazz method books extend the approach.
Sources - Improvisation for Flute — Berklee Online - Book review — Az Samad
- Type
- Book
- Author / Maker
- Andy McGhee
- Publisher
- Berklee Press
- Year
- 1974
- ISBN
- None
- Shelf
- Music
- Location
- Colorado