Piano Forum

Piano Board => Student's Corner => Topic started by: mosis on June 24, 2005, 11:07:38 PM

Title: So much attention to scales, but there's so much more!
Post by: mosis on June 24, 2005, 11:07:38 PM

There are pages upon pages of movements, methods, and motions for scale practice, but everything else seems to be neglected! Arpeggios have been discussed in no where as near detail as have scales, and just about everything else has been neglected.

I've used the information on scale playing here to really start firing up my scales, but my arpeggios are still lacking due to lack of information (I know about hand displacement and that's about it. Scale playing involves 4 or 5 movements, I'm certain arps require more, but none are discussed!). On top of that, octave scale practice and technique has never been discussed, nor has effective chord playing. Does anyone have any advice on working out these aspects of technique?

Title: Re: So much attention to scales, but there's so much more!
Post by: xvimbi on June 25, 2005, 03:15:51 AM

It's not quite as grim as you think. There are lots of threads that cover arpeggios and chords, but mostly indirectly. Search for 'cartwheel", for example, to find out more about arpeggios.

In general, however, the pertinent techniques are well discussed in the literature (Chang, Fink, Bernstein, Sandor, etc.). The best, of course, is working with a teacher, but studying those books will get you pretty far as well. It's amazing how much money people are willing to spend on recordings and sheetmusic, while entirely neglecting a few standard books :(