It is also time to make scales more fluent, in-tune, and beautiful. And don’t forget that chromatic scale! Take music books you don’t generally work out of, and sight-read often. Ask your teacher to help you sight-read. It also helps to play duets, either with your teacher or with a friend.

One can never be over-prepared for an audition! Keep in mind that obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.

-Olivia Gutoff

I found this at David Thomas’s blog. Read this entry to see it in context.

I, too, have told students they have to practice until they can’t play it wrong. So darn true.

I’m glad to read about scales as well. I had a university student quit because I required scales. I like reading that others agree with me! I sometimes tell a student, “Okay, the strings are playing a pianissimo tremelo and now you have a huge solo. It’s the B major scale and you have to make it lovely. Go for it.” (I choose different scales, of course, at different times.) It is surprising how unmusically we sometimes play our scales.

And how some think scales are entirely unimportant.