This never happened to me before!

Last Saturday, one of my teenage students actually cheered when I said, “Let’s hear your scales.”

In 30 years of teaching, this was a first.

I couldn’t help but laugh — because honestly? I’ve never cheered at the thought of playing scales. For most students (and teachers!), scales and technical work tend to fall into the “necessary but boring” category.

But this year, I invented a secret weapon.

Instead of treating scales, keys, and harmony as isolated technical exercises, we’ve turned them into a journey.

Introducing the Circle Line Challenge

Using the Circle Line Challenge, students “travel” around the Circle of Fifths just like riding the London Underground. Each new key becomes a new station, complete with a London monument sticker to collect along the way. As they move through the keys, they work on scales, key signatures, chords, inversions, and progressions in a clear, structured way — but with a sense of purpose and progress.

Something amazing has happened.

Students aren’t dragging their feet through technical work anymore. They’re excited to see what key comes next. They’re motivated by the visual progress in their books.

They're talking about the Circle Line Challenge at school!

And they’re building real understanding of how keys and harmony connect — not just memorising patterns.

I’ve been using the Circle Line Challenge as a progressive keyboard harmony system across three different levels in my studio, and it’s quickly become one of my favourite parts of lessons.

And the coolest thing?

You can actually visit every monument in the Circle Line Challenge in real life. Each passport book shows which Underground line to take and which station to get off at — so students can literally follow their musical journey around London.

Scales that lead to sightseeing? I’ll take that any day.

If you’d like to try this with your own students (or even yourself), check out the Circle Line Challenge — a complete, progressive system that makes harmony work feel like an adventure. You can find it here: Circle Line Challenge