How fast can you play your scales?

[Beet9]

How fast can u play diatonic scales? (like C major, b minor etc.)
I have been playing all of them at 120 (16th notes) for about half a year and I cannot push them any faster than that.  HELP!  

[Clare]

Me too! I'm exactly the same. But, uh, I'm not trying to make mine any faster. I can't be bothered. For some reason, my arpeggios are way better than my scales.
Are your hands relaxed when you're playing your scales? You might also be making unnecessary movements like maybe when you put your thumb under you squish your hand up too much or something.

[ted]

Sorry, what does 120 mean in this context ? Forgive me for being dense. How many notes per second is that ?

[Beet9]

120 meaning 120 beats per second.  It's marked on the metrinomes.

[comme_le_vent]

120 beats a second???  
im supposing you mean a minute
the fastest metronome speed for scales that ive seen is in the 3rd mvt of alkan's sonatine, 252 bpm in 16ths(the left hand does the same tempo).
i can play at this tempo in right hand, but nowhere near as controlled as hamelin(it's prime exponent).
practicing scales actually isnt very important.
learn and play godowsky's 1st chopin etude, after youve played those difficult arpeggios, your scales will fly by, easily(well, after playing the piece for a while).

i have never really 'practiced' scales, i just learnt them, and i can play them whenever i want, somehow i actually improve my scales without practicing scales.
again - learn that godowsky etude.  

[comme_le_vent]

by the way, 120 bpm in 16th notes is 8 notes per second, 240 is 16 nps.  

[bernhard]

How fast can u play diatonic scales? (like C major, b minor etc.)
I have been playing all of them at 120 (16th notes) for about half a year and I cannot push them any faster than that.  HELP!  

1.      Speed of hands together will always be slower than speed with hands separate. If you want to increase speed of hands together, work on speed of hands separate first, and hands together will increase speed automatically. Work on the 70% rule: hands together speed is always 70% of hands separate. So set a speed for hands together, say 154. You will only be able to achieve that speed when you can play hands separate 220. Once you can do HS 220, you will find – perhaps to your amazement that  HT are automatically playing at 154.

2.      You must use a movement/set of movements that will allow you to play fast. You cannot play scales fast passing the thumb under. You must pass the thumb over. This issue has been already discussed at length in several threads of this forum. Try this one:

https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=perf;action=display;num=1072372668

In fact all this talk of thumb over thumb under is misleading. Your arm should move your hand and fingers in place. If you are reaching for the keys with your fingers, they will be doing a monumental effort in pulling the arms. It must be the other way around. The fingers are responsible only for the vertical movement, the horizontal movement is done by the arm (think glissando).

3.      Also remember that although you want the scale to sound even, for this to happen the movements must be uneven: you must slow down the 123 1234 fingers and speed up the 31 and 41 fingers. Ultimately the speed of your scales will be limited by how fast you can do 31 and 41. Doing 123 and 1234 fast is never a problem.

4.      You must use a fingering that will allow you to play fast. The 3rd and 4th fingers of both hands should always play a black key (except of course in C major). Orthodox fingering follows this principle in the right hand, but rarely on the left hand where the 4th finger usually plays a white note. So you must change the fingering of the left hand. If you are using orthodox fingering, this is probably one of the main reasons why you cannot speed up your scales: the left hand is holding back the right hand.


5.      Here is an example: G major over two octaves

Orthodox fingering:
RH 123 1234 123 12345 (4th finger goes on the black key)
LH – 54321 321 4321 321 (2nd  finger goes on the black key, 4th finger on a white key)

More efficient fingering:

RH: 123 1234 123 12345 (as before)
LH: 321 321 4321 321 43 (now the 4th finger goes on the black key)

Practise this fingering well with separate hands until it is thoroughly ingrained. Then join hands and you will be amazed at how much comfortable it is.

You will easily figure out the fingering for all scales if you always follow this principle (there is only one possible fingering if you prioritise the 4th finger on a black key and then the 3rd.) If you can’t figure it out ask again.

6.      You must use practice strategies that aim at speed: playing the scale in chord clusters, playing the scale with rhythm variations (e.g. slow-fast and then fast slow), etc.
7.      Perhaps most important of all, you should be able to do the scale fast mentally. If you hear it in your mind correctly, the fingers will comply.

I hope this helps.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[ted]

I think you're dead right there, Bernhard. Speed playing is physically different to slower playing - different fingering, different sensations, different everything. It also tends to be more hand dependent, that is to say individual differences in hand size and shape matter more at high velocity.

It gets even more important with double note scales - I find the difference there between slow and rapid technique (and it's surprising how fast you can get those things with practice) is even more pronounced.

The fact that the best fast solution sometimes seems silly at low speeds makes working out fingerings and positions a bit of a puzzle sometimes. The whole approach applies to all fast playing, of course, not just scales.

A case in point was the run which begins Mazeppa. I started by using normal scale positions and wondered why I wasn't able to speed up. Then I tried a really silly looking fingering and the whole thing became quite easy.

[bitus]

What about practicing the scales faster and faster, starting at a low speed, and going 5 beats on the metronome faster every time? (from 100 to 150-160)
Wouldn't you say the hand and the body adjusts to the speed? The only thing wrong i see with this is that you don't know and realize what's going on in the process.
The Bitus