To increase the number of scales available to the player, the “Three Blind Mice” exercise was evolved to challenge and extend the player and to encourage the use of ALL the buttons on the instruments.
Three Blind Mice is an interesting tune, it covers the complete scale and covers most of the simple note values. The exercise was devised to be circular: play through the “sharp” keys and then through the “flat” keys. If still sane – keep going until the mind rebels!
The things we discovered with this exercise is how easy the key of E is to play in, and how difficult it is not to play F# in the “flat” keys.