The Starter scale is a set of pitches and their fingering that is practically universal with the contemporary Native American Flutes.

The historical flutes were not intentionally tuned to anything recognizable to the modern musical ear. But the recent renewed interest in this style of instrument, made by native and non-native, has led to the instrument being reinvented as a tuned instrument. A majority of the modern makers have standardized on Minor keyed flutes, which some would argue are easier to play than the diatonic tuning of the modern recorder. Unfortunately, this standardization has not led to a standard fingering, so the Starter scale introduces the pitches and their fingering that are common with most flutes. So this is a good starting point to introduce new players. The FluteTree songbook includes such melodies: Duck Dance, and Midnight Snow. Once a new player becomes comfortable with these few fingerings, a couple of more pitches can be added to create the Basic scale.