Do you still practice scales?

[pet]

For the more advanced pianists, do you still practice scales everytime you practice?  The reason why I ask is, more times than not, i have realized advanced pianists warm up with easier pieces than scales and arpeggios.  I still practice scales and arpeggios because I believe that they are important.  Besides, I pay a lot of Bach and Mozart, and their music are mostly scalar anyways.

Any thoughts?

[celticqt]

Yes, I try to go through them at least once every day.  I took about a month off from scales (I had a concert, and skipped the scales to work on my program), and when I came back to them last week I was horrified at how my LH had degenerated.  So now I am playing lots of LH scales.  I'm not a super advanced pianist, though - right now I'm working on some Chopin etudes - so the others may have more valuable input.  But I would definitely not skip them.  My two cents. 

[m1469]

No I don't.  Mostly because I have been caught in a quandary... but, I plan to start practising them again immediately.  I used to go through a little routine, 4 octaves through the circle of 5ths.... up all four octaves in parallel motion first, then back down.  Up half way again, then hands split into contrary motion, then meet again in the middle.  Hands in parallel motion going up in the top register, back to the middle.  Hands splitting into contrary motion again, and then coming back to the middle, and then hands in parallel motion going down to the first note started on. 

During this time I made games out of dynamic control and articulations, sometimes one hand crescendoing while the other decrescendos.... and all sorts of things like that.  I actually really miss it  . 

I will say that when I started doing this routine, I felt a number of things "improve" from where they had been.  My overall comfort with the keyboard greatly progressed.  My strength and stamina began to build, and I felt like I was developing/had developed a base in my approach to the piano.  That was the first time I had ever really felt that.  Also, I developed greater control over my extremities because of the games I used to play while doing these scales.  So far, I have not actually found anything that replaces the feeling I had when I practiced this way, even if it was merely a mentality.

I may do it again, but I have been wishing to give Bernhard's descriptions on how to practice scales, a try.  I want to learn them deeper...


hmmmm.... it's probably time for me to break out of this paralyzing quandary.   


m1469

[vakulchai]

I hate scales. How long have you practice scales each day? Is there anyway to make me love playing sacles? I see many people addict to playing scales and they can spend hours and hours just practicing sacles.

[Tash]

i practice my scales, partly because i have to for uni- we get them assessed how very exciting. but also i like them to warm up at the very beginning, helps my fingers defrost

[gorbee natcase]

non religously unless I feel they need to be gon over.

But then if you did them religiously then you would have to do all chromatics, arps, 3rds,6ths, trems, octs, broken arps etc etc

If you wan't to drive your rep forwards then you must compromise, unless you have all day in which you can practice then hey go for it but it will become boring and tedious

Take a piece you are practicing and annalise your technichal weak spots in the piece/ pieces and work on them.

Eventualy you will cover it all. spend the extra time on making music and not washing the metaphorical dishes so to speak.

If its not broke don't fix it  

[rc]

I recently read about how Godowsky developed brilliant scales as a result of learning scale passages in real music.

I'm currently doing all that scale/chord/arpeggio work, since I'll need it to pass the examination to get into university. Which ain't so bad, these movements become more second nature every day, and I take the opprotunity to practice other aspects like dynamics, playing scales are easy compared with the incredible difficulty of making them interesting.

I would have preferred to learn these things through actual music. I'll stop doing these as soon as I can.

Though, maybe scale work would be useful in learning improvisation...

[kghayesh]

I just came back from a 2 hour scales practice session  .
It is the first time i do something like that. I must admit i feel more confident of my scales now, but my god...... sooo boring !!!

[pet]

I practice scales about 15-20 minutes every time I practice.  Since I'm so use do them, I can do them rather quickly.  I play scales exactly the way m1469 described, and I think it helps technique overall.  I think if you don't practice scales regularly you won't be as confident when it comes to fast music, or comfortable with the keys themselves.

I don't know...that's just my opinion.

Thank you all for your input!

[mcgillcomposer]

The only thing I ever used scales for was to learn to be comfortable in any key on the piano.  I never used them for technical purposes.  In fact, all of my technique was developed by concentrating on difficult passages in actual pieces.  Perhaps this doesn't work for everyone, but it sure worked for me.

- Andrew

[pianobabe_56]

I think scales are more important than most people give them credit for. I warm up with scales (not 2 hours--that's a bit much for me), and focus on playing them musically--an obvious crescendo as I'm going up, and diminuendo coming back down. I also do contrary motion, and then hands separately to work on speed.

[mike_lang]

I think that I've already posted this somewhere, but I find scales to be of infinite importance.  Every day, I practice half an hour to 40 min. of scales, arpeggi, broken chords, double thirds, chromatic thirds, sixths, octaves, voiced chords, solid chords, broken chords, 2/3, 3/2, 4/3, 3/4, etc.  Legato and leggiero - 8ths, triplets, sixteenths.  It makes things a lot easier when I get to my pieces and saves time.  Each week a pick a new keys going around the circle of fifths.  Scales are in the tonic and chords in the dominant.

The other reason that these are important is that they must become second nature.  When this happens, once can monitor in warm-up (so to speak) things like breathing, hand position, posture, and the like.  I think that aside from etudes, this daily regimen is what keeps my technique in shape.

Best,
Michael