Developing scalic playing

[jabbz]

Hello, any advice on how to develop all aspects of playing scaling passage work? (I'm thinking of the frightening scales in Litolff Concerto Sinfonique No.4 in particular.)

My main aims are to develop agility in scales and passage work, with legato, but I'm finding working standard scales with a metronome isn't really going anywhere. Any help anyone?

Jabbz~

[jabbz]

Anyone?

[rc]

isolate a single note from a fast scale and it will be very fast, to the point of being staccato.  At a certain point the fingers know how to go down on the note well and it becomes more important to have a quick release so the fingers can 'reset'.

An idea:

forget the metronome, feel pick a scale and work at it for a good long session.  Slowly until the fingers know automatically where to go, then you can speed it up by feel.  When the fingers are automatic you will be able to think less of them and more of simply the notes.  I found this 'musical' thinking much easier to get to high speeds cleanly.

This kind of practice session conditions the hand very much to that particular pattern.  After concentrating on one scale for up to an hour you'll have difficulty playing another scale because the hands will be strongly conditioned to that movement alone   Not good for adaptability, but good for exploring the limits of speed.

I know many advocate the idea of short practice sessions, but I've found it's useful to stretch the concentration to longer sessions from time to time.  If you can sit down and focus on one problem for an hour you will get very far into that difficulty.

[jabbz]

That's most helpful, thank you!

[invictious]

Just to troll around, I think the correct form should be 'scalar' playing.

[jabbz]

Interesting. I've heard scalar before, but I've heard scalic used more by my music teacher, either way, for fun, I googled both in the context of 'scalic/scalar playing' and got roughly equal matches.

[rc]

That's most helpful, thank you!