Technical approaches

[kevink]

Lots of threads are turning into arguments about how learn technique, framed this way:

Technique through the repertoire

Technique through exercises


Instead of continuing that discussion in the threads in which it has popped up, if anyone wants to contribute to it, let's talk about it here, so we don't hijack the other threads, which are about more specific technical inquiries.



To start it out: I say, I have had enough of this nonsense about technique being learned entirely through the repertoire.  Any teacher who doesn't teach scales, arpeggios, trills, octaves, doubled notes, and every possible variety of those things, is not doing his/her job.

You've heard me say it before: Chopin, Liszt, the Lehvinnes, etc etc etc.... they all taught technique apart from the repertory.  What do you know that they don't?  Please explain yourself, and include personal experience if possible--since I can't stand purely theoretical discussions of something so practical.

[ramseytheii]

Lots of threads are turning into arguments about how learn technique, framed this way:

Technique through the repertoire

Technique through exercises


Instead of continuing that discussion in the threads in which it has popped up, if anyone wants to contribute to it, let's talk about it here, so we don't hijack the other threads, which are about more specific technical inquiries.



To start it out: I say, I have had enough of this nonsense about technique being learned entirely through the repertoire.  Any teacher who doesn't teach scales, arpeggios, trills, octaves, doubled notes, and every possible variety of those things, is not doing his/her job.

You've heard me say it before: Chopin, Liszt, the Lehvinnes, etc etc etc.... they all taught technique apart from the repertory.  What do you know that they don't?  Please explain yourself, and include personal experience if possible--since I can't stand purely theoretical discussions of something so practical.

You offered more information in the other thread where you wrote,

===
"I still maintain that the "technique of technique" is to find the component motions of an aggregate motion, master until they become "natural," then combine them back into the aggregate motion.  In short, divide and conquer.  And practicing exercises is the most useful way for me to focus on a specific technique, so that I can make it a natural, automatic part of my playing."
===

For many, and for me, improving technique is simply not about learning a series of universal motions.  In fact, I often post here as an antidote to those who only post about physical approaches to piano playing, because that approach has been personally so harmful to me at the keyboard, and I suspect harmful to others as well.

The problem I sense here is that technical exercises present material in sort of undiluted forms; an arpeggio is always an arpeggio that goes up, and then back down.  Octaves are predictable be they in scales, repeated notes (in Hanon you can find an exercise where you repeat each octave in the scale eight times before moving to the next note), arpeggios.  Scales can be an octave apart, in thirds, tenths, or in contrary motion.  Et cetera!  But in the repertoire, how often if ever do these undiluted examples exist?

Practicing, for instance, hours of C-# minor arpeggios with proper fingering, will not teach you how to play Beethoven op.27 no.2 third movement.  Will it help?  Probably. But the relation between the two, an undiluted c-# minor arpeggio, and the layered arpeggiations of that Beethoven, only go as far as the name of the notes.  Nothing else, not even the so-called "movement," which as far as I am concerned is never universal anyways.

One might say, "Yes, that's true, so why not practice a c-# minor arpeggio as it appears in Beethoven, starting first from the c-#, playing three more notes, then starting from the e, et cetera, up and down."  To which I reply, "Why not just practice the Beethoven, which already does that?" 

Every composer uses scales and arpeggios in a different way.  To illustrate this, compare the first movement of the Mendelssohn c minor piano trio (piano part) with any music in c minor by Beethoven.  The approach is just vastly different.  There is no one set of motions that will apply to all cases, that wll solve all problems in all contexts. 

There is only a flexibility of motion, and a few basic things which one has to be able to do (using the component parts of the body as they are meant to be used, for instance allowing the elbows to move in slight clockwise or counter-clockwise directions; employing different kinds of touch which subconciously will effect the way you use the arm weight; etc)

We can achieve this kind of flexibility by concientious practicing of anything, technical drills or repertoire.  I believe it is in this way that technical drills achieve something, but I don't find it inherently different than what we can achieve through prcaticing actual music.  And to that end, what is the point of practicing non-music, if that flexibility can be achieved through a real creative encounter?

Just a few scattered thoughts on the subject.

Walter Ramsey

[kevink]

One might say, "Yes, that's true, so why not practice a c-# minor arpeggio as it appears in Beethoven, starting first from the c-#, playing three more notes, then starting from the e, et cetera, up and down."  To which I reply, "Why not just practice the Beethoven, which already does that?" 

If you just practice the arpeggio as it appears in the Beethoven, you'll have to practice every arpeggio you encounter in each successive piece you learn.  As I and other posters who have spent agonizing years in the "technique through rep" approach have mentioned, this can be very tedious, discouraging, and ineffective.

If you want to make a technical exercise out of the music (for example, work on arpeggios through study of the Beethoven you mentioned), in order to make it comprehensive enough to have a benefit in any other context, you'd need to practice it in all keys, and then we are getting back into drilling exercises.

Additionally, if you learn your technique through the repertoire, you end up always making choices about repertoire that are based, at least in part, on your technical development.  This is anti-musical to my mind; shouldn't the repertoire we learn be most suited to our musical needs and tastes, not our technical ability?  Also, it seems ineffective by itself, because your path through th repertoire simply can't present you with a perfectly methodical approach to building technique--which you will always need for sight-reading, even if you don't need it for pieces you aren't working on at the moment.

When I study a piece, technical barriers to my musical expression are extremely frustrating.  Surmounting them in the context of the piece is tedious.  Technique work apart from the repertoire is actually less tedious and frustrating in the long run, because all the work gets done in a condensed fashion.  I'm not forced to put the music "on hold" to work out a pesky technical problem; instead, I make technique the focus of a portion of my practice, so that it has my full attention.  I find this more motivating.  We all enjoy musical work more than technique work; practicing to overcome mechanical barriers as they appear in a piece of music is akin to being at Disneyland but being forced to mow the lawn all day instead of frolic in the park.  I don't know about you, but I think that would be pretty frustrating... whereas mowing the lawn when I'm at home is actually kind of an enjoyable, relaxing, meditative activity for me.

So there you have it.  I think technical work apart from the repertoire is more effective and also more motivational.  After all, the best way to inspire is to show that something can be done; and you can watch your technique grow daily when you work on it in a methodical way outside of the repertory.... but you might be up against a wall for a long time if you wait for the piece of music to present you with the problem.

PS for any aggravated posters:  yes, I have read what seems like hundreds of Bernhard posts and I've followed the discussions in previous threads--I frequently read about this issue, and I have paid close attention to dissenting opinions.  Whenever I feel strongly about something, I research a lot about the opposing position, just like anyone else.  In the end though I feel the best education I have on this subject is my own experience--years and years and years of poor technical training through the "tech thru rep" method, compared with just a few months of extremely fast progress in technical drilling.

[rc]

We can achieve this kind of flexibility by concientious practicing of anything, technical drills or repertoire.  I believe it is in this way that technical drills achieve something, but I don't find it inherently different than what we can achieve through prcaticing actual music.  And to that end, what is the point of practicing non-music, if that flexibility can be achieved through a real creative encounter?

Agreed that what we practice isn't as important as how we practice it.  In that sense, I believe one who practices technical drills in an uncreative way is doing it wrong.  A scale ought to be practiced as musically as possible, as if it were an extract from an masterpiece...  But without a specific musical context, the drill is a blank slate and so an excellent vehicle to explore and practice any desired effect.  Which also lends itself to being an unending challenge, which can be useful in developing good practice habits.

At a point, the line between technical drill and music becomes blurred.

Most of all is the flexibility, I don't think it's anything to be underestimated when the practice of scales becomes the general skill of scales, whether their in a straight line or not.  Personally, I'd rather do this sort of exploration/refinement work on a scale than to burn myself out on a favorite masterpiece.

[ramseytheii]

Agreed that what we practice isn't as important as how we practice it.  In that sense, I believe one who practices technical drills in an uncreative way is doing it wrong.  A scale ought to be practiced as musically as possible, as if it were an extract from an masterpiece...  But without a specific musical context, the drill is a blank slate and so an excellent vehicle to explore and practice any desired effect.  Which also lends itself to being an unending challenge, which can be useful in developing good practice habits.

Good practice habits should be instilled in childhood.  If they aren't, it is always an individual matter of the student: do they want to use technical drills to develop habits?  I believe the answer is an overwhelming no.  But actually, it doesn't even matter what I believe, because any students, be it 1% of students or 99%, if they don't want to spend their time playing piano and not making music, they won't improve.

That tells me that improvement comes with focussed thinking and efficient concentration.  Since there is no universal movement to achieve any scale or arpeggio or whatever, that concentration should be directed towards learning actual music.

At a point, the line between technical drill and music becomes blurred.

Only for those composers who can translate those elements into music, like Bach, Liszt and Chopin.

Most of all is the flexibility, I don't think it's anything to be underestimated when the practice of scales becomes the general skill of scales, whether their in a straight line or not.  Personally, I'd rather do this sort of exploration/refinement work on a scale than to burn myself out on a favorite masterpiece.

If you practice your scales with devotion in order to improve your technique, you will probably succeed.  However if you practice the concertos of Mozart, lets say you want to learn 3 concertos simultaneously, and you categorize the different types of passagework, and pracitce those, your technique will also improve.  If you practice one Mozart concerto with devotion, your technique will improve.  This will allow you to play other pieces better, even if the passages are not written the same.  Also practicing just scales: very few pieces have a 4 octave scale, both hands in unison, up and then down.  In fact I can't think of any pieces.  So the drill itself is as "irrelevant" as some would say, as pracitcing specific passages in repertoire.  It's not what you do that improves, it is how.

Walter Ramsey

[rc]

That tells me that improvement comes with focussed thinking and efficient concentration.  Since there is no universal movement to achieve any scale or arpeggio or whatever, that concentration should be directed towards learning actual music.

As you said earlier, it's not so much about a specific movement as the flexible principles.  No two passages will have the same motions, but the general skill of even legato is the same everywhere it's used.  Being that scale/arpeggio/chord/etc fragments are found everywhere in the literature, it's sooner or later that we wind up drilling the skill anyhow.

Only for those composers who can translate those elements into music, like Bach, Liszt and Chopin.

What I meant by this is as one becomes more and more imaginative in practicing scales the more it begins to resemble an extract from the literature.  When one is no longer challenged by straight up and down in parallel octaves they can do it at different intervals, in contrary, changing directions in different spots, in fragmented patterns, in a harmonic sequence...  Until the scale practice could just as well be extracted from a passage in the Mozart concerto.

The student who practices their scales and chords, will be able to get right into the music when they learn Mozarts K545, having already done the majority of the work.  Two paths to the same end.  The way I see it, neither is necessarily better or worse than the other, whatever works for the individual.

[ramseytheii]

If you just practice the arpeggio as it appears in the Beethoven, you'll have to practice every arpeggio you encounter in each successive piece you learn.  As I and other posters who have spent agonizing years in the "technique through rep" approach have mentioned, this can be very tedious, discouraging, and ineffective.

If any arpeggio is worth its salt in difficulty, you have to practice it no matter how much you practice arpeggios in repertoire or in drills.  Not only will concentrated practice have general benefits, but also in this case, you can apply your knowledge of Beethoven's scale and arpeggios to his other music (such as the opening to the fifth concerto), and also understand it as an extension of previous techniques (Mozart c minor concerto) which are thereby improved, or as a forerunner of more developed techniques to come (Chopin op.10 no.1), thereby providing a firm foundation.  No repertoire is isolated, and in fact it is much easier to argue that technical drills are the isolated ones, that don't teach you anything about repertoire.

For instance, how many pieces can you name that have a scale with both hands playing in unison four octaves up and then four octaves down, convenient enough to incorporate the most common fingering?  I can't think of any.  But this is how we practice scales in drills, in addition to putting them in contrary motion, thirds, sixths and tenths (also all over the span of 4 octaves).  By your logic, one would practice these scales, and then have to learn every scale written differently in the repertoire from scratch.

Since there are so few universal patterns, it is concievably more damaging to practice as if there were.  If you want scales and arpeggios in drills to teach motions, you still might as well practice repertoire, because all motions are local.

If you want to make a technical exercise out of the music (for example, work on arpeggios through study of the Beethoven you mentioned), in order to make it comprehensive enough to have a benefit in any other context, you'd need to practice it in all keys, and then we are getting back into drilling exercises.

First I don't necessarily think for an exercise to be helpful it has to be in every single key.  Second, transposition isn't a drill but a musical skill.  Transposing the preludes and fugues of Bach, which many pianists have been able to do in the past but less so now, is hardly a drill.

Additionally, if you learn your technique through the repertoire, you end up always making choices about repertoire that are based, at least in part, on your technical development.  This is anti-musical to my mind; shouldn't the repertoire we learn be most suited to our musical needs and tastes, not our technical ability?  Also, it seems ineffective by itself, because your path through th repertoire simply can't present you with a perfectly methodical approach to building technique--which you will always need for sight-reading, even if you don't need it for pieces you aren't working on at the moment.

Any good repertoire will have a large selection of varied techniques.  Tonight I sight-read Medtner op.14 no.2: repeated notes, leaps of chords, polyphony and complicated rhythm, awkward left hand arpeggios, and I can't think of any drill that would have assisted those things.  Hanon for instance offers an exercise where we can play a C major scale in octaves, repeated each octave 8 times; I don't see any benefit for the varied repetitions of this Medtner Fairy Tale, or for Scarbo, or even for Erlkoenig, since no matter how hard you try, you cannot make a C major scale sound as terrifying and urgent as Erlkoenig.

A methodical approach to building technique is the ability to solve problems.  I think, somewhat maliciously, that the approach of drills to "pre-empt" technical problems is akin to George Bush, "We're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here."  I repeat, it isn't motions that are usefully practiced, since we just have to acquire a flexibility, not learn an endlessly repeated pattern of motions that is fixed forever in time.  Instead we have to find mainly musical solutions to technical problems, musical solutions which are enhanced by a basic knowledge of the proper functioning of the body.

About choosing repertoire, in the end that is also personal, but I think it is entirely possible to choose repertoire based on love for the music, or for the interest of its technical difficulties (which is why many play the Liszt Mephisto Waltz and Sonata), or for the improvement of certain areas (this is even why Chopin wrote such specific etudes).  What's the problem?  Teachers assign repertoire to students based on their deficiencies all the time.

When I study a piece, technical barriers to my musical expression are extremely frustrating.  Surmounting them in the context of the piece is tedious.  Technique work apart from the repertoire is actually less tedious and frustrating in the long run, because all the work gets done in a condensed fashion.  I'm not forced to put the music "on hold" to work out a pesky technical problem; instead, I make technique the focus of a portion of my practice, so that it has my full attention.  I find this more motivating.  We all enjoy musical work more than technique work; practicing to overcome mechanical barriers as they appear in a piece of music is akin to being at Disneyland but being forced to mow the lawn all day instead of frolic in the park.  I don't know about you, but I think that would be pretty frustrating... whereas mowing the lawn when I'm at home is actually kind of an enjoyable, relaxing, meditative activity for me.

I certainly can't argue with your personal experience.  But I find it hard to believe that if you encounter for instance the tutta forza arpeggios in the Mephisto Waltz and hit a wall, you will be able to solve it by practicing conventional arpeggios for an hour in every key.  It is through these very barriers, what Charles Cooke called "fractures," that devoted attention will bring a general improvement in technique.  Liszt's arpeggios here are directly related to those of many pianists who followed him, Ravel and Prokofiev to name just two.


Walter Ramsey

[schubertiad]

Great post Walter. Just a quick side note: part of the motivation for disciplined practice comes from having a goal at the end of all that hard work. If you are learning technique through repertoire, then that end is obvious: when you have mastered your piece, you've got it. At that point, find another piece, another problem, another solution and so forth. This approach means that technical improvement and the growth of repertoire coincide. In fact, if practised properly, they really are one and the same. With pure exercises, on the other hand, there are no such end results, no pat-yourself-on-the-back moments for having achieved something, since as kevin himself agrees, the sky is the limit. An arpeggio can always be played faster, and since there is no musical context to restrain it, you might well be forever vainly searching for the solution to a problem which in real music doesn't exist. In that case, you have devoted hours upon hours of practice time needlessly. Anyway, from my personal experience, the switch from unfocused, undisciplined and reluctant technical practice (perhaps more my fault than an inherent flaw in the approach) to analytically breaking down the techniques of repertoire has really helped my playing.

[kevink]

For instance, how many pieces can you name that have a scale with both hands playing in unison four octaves up and then four octaves down, convenient enough to incorporate the most common fingering?  I can't think of any.  But this is how we practice scales in drills, in addition to putting them in contrary motion, thirds, sixths and tenths (also all over the span of 4 octaves).  By your logic, one would practice these scales, and then have to learn every scale written differently in the repertoire from scratch.

Since there are so few universal patterns, it is concievably more damaging to practice as if there were.  If you want scales and arpeggios in drills to teach motions, you still might as well practice repertoire, because all motions are local.

When I practice scales in 4 octaves, hands together, up and down.... I am practicing the mechanics of economic and dependable, coordinated motion in the fingering combinations 4321321 and 1231234 in both hands, with the most commonly used combinations of black and white keys.  Playing them in four octaves, and in 3rds, 6ths, 10ths, and contrary motion, etc, is all a way of challenging myself to make this coordinated motion automatic and reliable; fluent.

If I were to practice a scale passage in a Mozart concerto, I would inevitably be practicing the same thing.  The difference is that I would be practicing only that combination of white and black keys and only that tempo and only that particular articulation.  And it would not present the difficulty in acquiring fluency of a technical motion that scales in four octaves and a variety of forms does.

When I practice arpeggios, I am practicing carrying a melody through leaps or skips.  I'm also practicing carrying a melody through the finger combinations 123 repeating, 124 repeating, and 1234 repeating (and their opposites; 321, 421, and 4321).  I'm doing this over a vast array of possible combinations of white and black keys.  And I'm practicing quick, economical, and supple regulated motion over the keyboard with my arms.  And I'm practicing aligning my arms with my fingertips.... there's just a lot I'm practicing.


To quote Liszt:

"You see, one must not be hindered by anything, for when one desires to express all that one feels, the fingers must be so technically proficient, so supple, and must have such a combination of nuances in readiness, that the heart can stir freely, without ever being handicapped by finger obstacles."

It seems rather simplistic to say that 4 octave hands-together scales aren't useful (or are even possibly damaging) because they don't occur in music.  Well, perhaps the actual musical figuration doesn't occur--but I guarentee you mechanical challenges presented in scales and arpeggios and all kinds of other technique drills pop up in every single piece in the literature.  If you can master these mechanical challenges, you will improve your ability to play any given piece.

I agree that a scale in Mozart isn't the same as a scale in Chopin; I agree that an arpeggio in Liszt isn't the same as an arpeggio in the Hanon book.  But the difference is not as severe as you're making it out to be.  The techniques I mentioned above, that I practice when I do scales and arpeggios, are required in Mozart and Liszt as well.  If I were to distill the most essential components of every Liszt arpeggio, every Chopin arpeggio, every Mozart, Clementi, Bach, Beethoven, Brahms arpeggio.... I would likely arrive at the naked, lonely, and humble Hanon arpeggio (or Alfred arpeggio or other scales book arpeggio).  

The fastest way to get better at every conceivable arpeggio in the literature, is to practice that which all of them have in common.

 

[rc]

you might well be forever vainly searching for the solution to a problem which in real music doesn't exist.

I think this is my main disagreement with anti-technical drills, I've found there to be a significant carryover from my technique work to the literature.  There may never be a 4 octave parallel scale, but there are plenty of scalar runs in one hand or the other - the 4oct practice makes smaller runs a cynch, also I've noticed that finding good fingering in scales has become more automatic...  Scales, arpeggios, chords, double notes, all occur often in music.

By my experience, there is a reward to overcoming the challenge of a technical figuration.  I remember how legato arpeggios used to vex me, and good it felt to finally figure out how to do them, as well as knowing that I will already know how to do it when I come across a similar figuration in the literature - which I have.

On another thought, it's hard to be objective about such a thing because how can I say if one path is better or not?  I can't go back in time and see if I learn arpeggio patterns faster through rep.

[danny elfboy]

I think there are two aspects in piano playing

One reductionist aspect, which can be called the physical-technical aspect

One holistic aspect, which can be called the musical-technical aspect

By reductionism I mean the belief that whatever thing (especially complex systems) can easily be reduced to their minimal parts. In other words a complex system is nothing more than the sum of all its smallest part. By holistic I mean the oppose perspective, a complex system is way more than the sum of all its minimal parts and reducing to terms and summing will never result in the "whole".

I believe in reductionism in what I call "main form" of the physical-technical aspect, but I don't believe in reductionism as far as the musical-technical aspect is concerned. In other words a piece is way more than the sum of all its patterns and notes. Just because a piece contains certain notes, scales, arpeggios, thirds it doesn't mean that practicing those through specific exercises can be extrapolated to the same patterns within the piece. And I'm not only talking about just the musical aspect but the physical-anatomical too.
What makes something different in its physical and musical execution is not the pattern or shape itself but its collocation in the whole.

I believe though that a first approach at the piano should be the achievement of a "basic" motion that will be the basis of all more complex motions. If such basis will be lacking, whatever motion at the piano will always start from a weak foundation.

I made the example with the movie Karate Kid where a boy learns the "main form" of Karate not by practicing karate but by practicing 3 foundations away from karate: waxing the car, smoothing the porch, painting the fence.

It's the same reason as when you go to the gym for the first time you're asked to learn the "proper form" in front of the mirror and only when those become automatic starting with real exercises and real athletic goals.

The reason, as it has been noticed by many, is that emotional feedback linked with music distracts us from maintaining a proper form. Such emotional feedback should be allowed only when the main form has become automatic and occurs automatically in whatever motion we do from the most simple to the most complex. I have seen lot of pianists who still after years of lessons and virtuoso repertory struggle because they lack a proper form. Even playing just one note is something in which they lack a proper form and put a lot of useless stress and tension into. It's the reason why the Taubman teachers let the student work with just one note for weeks.

In this early phase which is all about acquiring an automatic main form that will be the basis for all motions technical exercises devoid of real musical and emotional content are useful.
It may be tedious (just like is practicing painting a fence instead of karate or silly motions at the mirror instead of pumping the iron) but the point is not to focus on the lack of music content and complaint but to focus on the physical sensations and make them the goal.

When such main form has been aquired and it is automatic in every motion at the piano we can forget about technical exercises and just work with pieces realizing that you can't extrapolate patterns from exercise to piece because what really matters in both the music and the piano-technique is the flow of the piece, and whatever pattern by entering in each unique piece flow becomes enterily different both in motion and sound to what we encountered on technical exercises.

The problem is that I still see late advanced students lacking a foundational main form and relying on boring unmusical exercises in order to make up for such lack. Or else I see students who approach unmusical and tedious technical exercises focusing on the lack of musical content rather than on their body sensations.

[walking_encyclopedia]

Kevink, in the other thread you stated that you practice technical 'drills' two to three hours a day. Seriously man, think of what real, rewarding music you could have learned and added to your repertoire in that amount of time. Music that would improve your technique and stamina, such as Chopin or Scriabin etudes.

I think it's kind of sad that you don't have the confidance to play real music until you have first practiced three hours of typewriting on the piano. There are so many pianists in the great schools and competitions with 'perfect' clean techniques but are very much lacking in musicality and ability to connect with audiences. Audiences could care less how many hours of drills you practiced.

Remember the recordings of Backhaus, Cortot, Kempff, Richter and others. Not perfectly clean, but they are legends who had enormous repertoires and could draw an astonishing array of colors and dynamic levels from the piano.

Someday you may not be able to practice three hours of drills every day, and you'll lose that perfect technique in a relatively short amount of time. But if you invest more in real music repertoire, you'll mature musically and retain all that music that you can share with others.

I admire your dedication, but aside from basic warm-up scales and arpeggios to limber the hands, I think technique should be developed right alongside musicality, by learning the etudes and advanced pieces of the great composers.

Just a few ideas.

[kevink]

Kevink, in the other thread you stated that you practice technical 'drills' two to three hours a day. Seriously man, think of what real, rewarding music you could have learned and added to your repertoire in that amount of time. Music that would improve your technique and stamina, such as Chopin or Scriabin etudes.

I think it's kind of sad that you don't have the confidance to play real music until you have first practiced three hours of typewriting on the piano. There are so many pianists in the great schools and competitions with 'perfect' clean techniques but are very much lacking in musicality and ability to connect with audiences. Audiences could care less how many hours of drills you practiced.

Remember the recordings of Backhaus, Cortot, Kempff, Richter and others. Not perfectly clean, but they are legends who had enormous repertoires and could draw an astonishing array of colors and dynamic levels from the piano.

Someday you may not be able to practice three hours of drills every day, and you'll lose that perfect technique in a relatively short amount of time. But if you invest more in real music repertoire, you'll mature musically and retain all that music that you can share with others.

I admire your dedication, but aside from basic warm-up scales and arpeggios to limber the hands, I think technique should be developed right alongside musicality, by learning the etudes and advanced pieces of the great composers.

Just a few ideas.

Did I hurt your feelings?  You seem to be taking this pretty personally.

Maybe you've found that you can improve your technique quickly through the repertoire, without working on scales and arpeggios and other exercises.  I've found the opposite.  I'm tired of people like you taking it upon themselves to "teach" people that exercises are not useful, because, frankly, they are--and for many of us (I am apparently not the only one), they have proved to be extremely beneficial to speeding the process of learning the repertoire.

I've spent a lot of time justifying my statements in this and other threads, so I won't rehash them or say anything more about them unless you have a specific comment about them.