Practicing Scales?

[vincentl]

I am sorry if this is a question that should not even be asked because of its simplicity, but I just wanted clarification about this. I do not have a teacher that I can ask about these kind of things.
Anyway, on to my question; how do you exactly practice scales? Do I just run the scales as a piano exercise and memorize them? Or am I missing something?

[rmbarbosa]

First, it`s very important to know that, even when we are playing technical exercises, we must look for them like MUSIC. How to do this? Play, for example, the B major scale (probably, the easiest). First, play it paying attention to eveness and tone. Then, play it also paying attention to legato. Then with finger stacato. Then "non legato" (detached). Then, play pp... p...mf.... then play from pp to mf or f ascending and from for mf to pp descending. Try the "pearled" way of play scales: very fast stroke, very fast lift. The same scale may be played with all this "nuances", you see? Also you may try a scale present in one real music: first mov. of Mozart Sonata in C major, for example. Or the last bars of Nocturne post in C sharp minor (Chopin). I think this is the best way to improve technic. Allways play MUSIC.
Best regards
rui

[automorphism]

This question isn't simple. There are nuances in every aspect of the piano. You should aim to eventually be fairly fast. If you have the basic hand position down then you should practice parts of the scale that are particularly slow, which will definitely be the transitions 3-1, 4-1, etc. Practice those parts very slowly to see what your fingers are doing and then try to play the same way faster.

Sometimes I start at different positions in the scale, which is kind of useful, at least to me, to recognize when I encounter similar passages in music. Evenness is pretty important and sometimes suffers when you start to go faster. Scale practice should include not just the standard scale with two hands, but contrary motion, arpeggios, chords, etc. to the point of being in your soul, so to speak.

[Bob]

Memorize them, yes.

Hands together, hand separate.

2 octaves, then 4.

Up/down, down/up
contrary motion

I've seen an exercise that is four 8ves up and down, then s 8ves up, contrary out and in for 2 8ves, then up 2 8ves, and either back all the way down or to the middle and out/in contrary again, then down to the bottom again.

[thinkgreenlovepiano]

It's a good idea to memorize scales, along with reasonable fingering...
Anyways, I don't really think I can give you much advice, I'm not a teacher =P... but I'll tell you what works for me.
I used to be horrible with scales because I never took them seriously, and rushed through the difficult keys. For the past 2-3 years I've been trying to change that... I'm still working on it!

I start with a slow tempo and gradually work on speeding up my scales. I'd start off with a comfortable tempo, but then challenge myself to play faster. Accuracy is more important than speed, but speed is still very very important. But I don't think its a good idea to only play a scale fast and with a lot of mistakes that are never corrected- which is what I used to do. Either that or I'd play painstakingly slow and unevenly.

I usually like to start off with 4 octaves of B major, or Gb major, the most comfortable scales for me... I will also play their formula pattern.
And then play through all the keys, just 1-2 octaves.
My teacher assigns me 2 scales every week to work on. For those scales, I'll play it 4 octaves, along with the formula pattern, triads, solid and broken chords, and arpeggios. I also play the scale starting from different notes, staccato and legato, and separated by different intervals, instead of just an octave. It's good practise
After that, I focus on the scales that give me trouble. I keep a list of problem scales/arpeggios/ and chords that I need to regularly review, if not every day, at least every couple of days.

I wish scales were simple... I've been trying to figure out a good way to practise them for a really long time. This is an interesting thread, I'm looking forward to what everyone else says.

[brogers70]

A teacher would help a lot, of course. I practice scales for 15-20 minutes at the beginning of practice. I pick one set of major/minor scales each day. I spend almost all of the time working hands separate (learning them hands together is good for coordination, but won't help you develop speed, accuracy, or evenness, at least I don't think so). For each scale I 1. Play four octaves in a triplet rhythm three times - that means that the strongest impulse of the triplet falls at a different point of the scale on each of the three repetitions, which helps you work on minimizing unevenness caused by the 3-1,4-1 shifts 2. Play with dotted rhythms, dotted eighth-sixteenth, and  sixteenth-dotted eighth 3. Play fast slow patterns like eighth followed by two sixteenths, or vice versa 4. Play staccato 5. Play legato and relatively fast 6. try as fast as possible for short bits of the scale, say CDEF, CDEFG, CDEFGA, CDEFGAB, trying to get the shifts at the same speed as the rest - I try to stretch that up to 2 octaves or as far as I can get staying relaxed.

I go through that routine with each hand for the major and minor scale of the day. Then maybe check that the hands can work together once or twice.

I'm sure others have different ways of practicing scales. The main thing not to do is to shut off your mind and do them endlessly without paying attention.

Bill

[vincentl]

Thank you for sharing your advice everybody, now I know how to really practice scales. I never really paid attention to legato before, always only staccato.

(learning them hands together is good for coordination, but won't help you develop speed, accuracy, or evenness, at least I don't think so).

I know I've read that somewhere before.. I will have to agree with you on that one, that certainly seems to be true. That is why I do not spend too much time on playing scales HT.

[vincentl]

Oh, and I almost forgot to ask, does anyone have any advice on how to pick a set of scales to practice first? Do I practice all the major scales first then minor scales? Or something like that.

[lostinidlewonder]

A routine that I get students to do sometimes with scales is as follows.

1) Play BH from starting position up to the next octave ending with fingering as if you where going to do the next octave. (e.g in C major both thumbs end on C)

2) From the 2nd octave position (e.g Cmajor thumbs start on Cs) go up.

3) From the the 2nd octave position go down.

Obviously not all scales have the 2) and 3) with the same starting fingers, so you may have to work out which starting fingers you use write them down so you can achieve it immediately.

Rhythmic changes are limited only to short long and long short. For instance with C major:
C(hold) D(short) E(hold) F(short) etc. The short notes must connect to the following long note without any hesitation, but we can hold as long as we like. Reversing the rhythm then tests the speed between other fingers. This way you can weed out out which fingers are your problem child.