how important are the contrary motion scales?

[coffee_guy]

I have noticed, although I don't plan on testing, the ABRSM exams include contrary motion scales. My teachers uses the ABRSM curriculum with me, but has not really emphasized that I practice these. What are the importance of the contrary motion scales, and is it something I should start focusing some practice on?

[ajspiano]

there are many musical situations that involve notes moving in contrary motion (it often sounds better than similar motion) - contrary motion is also easier a lot of the time as it provides fingering symmetry initially. It also introduces your ear to harmony in a given key..

i could go on. Scales are good.

[freejazzlessonsdotcom]

Practicing contrary motion scales can be useful.  They can be helpful if you want to develop some basic hand independence.  There is also potential applications in music that features contrapuntal motion.

[commissiona]

I haven't had much formal training, but the little I've had my intructor never mentioned scales in contrary montion.  However, when I first started practicing scales I began to start trying them in CM as it just seemed natural to do so, and to check to see if I could do it in the first place. 

At first it seemed very hard, but it doesn't take long to get them going with a little practice.  But like freejazz and ajaspiano said, they do seem to help with hand independence and are good for many reasons. 

For one thing the black and white keys no longer line up with what the left and right hand are doing, so they're good for me because it helped me get a better feel for the geography of each key[signature], whereas just practicing regular scales 'mechanical' playing eventually takes over and I'm no longer really advancing much by playing them the same way every day.

Of course the same can happen when practicing CM, too, so as many different permutations and patterns you can come up with or improvise with different scales, the better I reckon. 

I'm not much of an improviser, but when I want a different way to play a scale, I like to take some random scalar pattern out of an exercise book, such as Hanon, and transpose them to the scale I'm working on.  Even though I don't really believe in Hanon for it's intended purpose, I do find it useful for scale practice as they are pretty easy to transpose, therefore by changing it up I can better guage where I'm really at with a particular scale by removing the possibility of automation in motions.


Good Morning
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Playing/Learning:
Haydn: Sonata in C No. 35
Mozart: Fantasia in d, K. 397
Scarlatti: K. 1, 380, 443
Blasco de Nebra: Sonata V
Handel: Fantasia in C G.60
Couperin: La Reville Matin
Rameau: La Dauphine
Bach, Vanhal, more Scarlatti, and thinking about Beethoven.

[faulty_damper]

I'd like to know the neurological reasons for contrary motion, specifically, what are the benefits of practicing such movements on the keyboard.  And by extension, what are the reasons for any contrary motion in other activities such as dance?

If this were a violin forum, would we even ask about contrary motion?  No, we wouldn't.  So what are the reasons for such practice?  Do learners who practice CM learn faster than learners who don't?

[commissiona]

I'd like to know the neurological reasons for contrary motion, specifically, what are the benefits of practicing such movements on the keyboard.  And by extension, what are the reasons for any contrary motion in other activities such as dance?

If this were a violin forum, would we even ask about contrary motion?  No, we wouldn't.  So what are the reasons for such practice?  Do learners who practice CM learn faster than learners who don't?

I agree that if this were a violin forum, certainly not, but I don't see how the concept would would be physically applicable to such an instrument.  A piano forum, or harpsichord, or organ, archembalo, celesta, lautenwerck forum, or most any other chordophone forum would merit such an investigation.

Now, do I think those who practice CM learn faster?  Nah!  In fact, I'm not aware of any kind of specific exercise that would accelerate development, aside from a good diet of scales in general any way you prefer to practice them that gets them under your belt. 

Empirically, from what I've seen in my own early development, when approching them they were neither too easy to learn (otherwise I would have rendered them useless), nor were they so difficult that I spent hours and days on each individual scale getting them down (which again in that scenario would also probably be useless).  Instead, however, there was a learning curve involved: doing it in C for the very first time was difficult, then F more difficult, then G about the same, D a little LESS so, B-flat less so, E-flat less, A much less, until playing through the rest of them that way didn't really become a problem anymore. 

What happened there, by learning such an excercise by simple transposition, is that I solved a technical problem.  Maybe just a technical problem of being able to improvise (in a very extremely basic sense) playing scales in CM, but certainly definable progress.  So, by the time I got around to the less used scales, I now had the skills to learn something 'new' much more effectively without so much work as before. 

So they didn't measurably get any me closer to playing Beethoven, but it was the first time I can remember my hands playing independently as you can't really keep an eye on both while doing so, whereas playing regular scales you can.  To do scales CM, I think you are in a way giving yourself confirmation you are, in fact, becoming more familiar what your hands and fingers should and shouldn't be pressing in a certain key, and if you are really just beggining, then perhaps pragmatically getting more used to feel of playing different notes in each hand at the same time without having to think to terribly hard about it.

But to endlessly drill them without much variation, like any other excerise, would become a waste of time, as your have already reaped the benefits of that particular exercise once before.

Wish you a very Happy New Year, take care!