Best practices for practising scales and arpeggios

[justanamateur]

Hi, so after finishing Grade 8, I was wondering how I should continue practising my scales without any book to look at. I can recite everything, but bringing it up to speed is a problem, as is playing arpeggios up to speed without making darn mistakes (I made a lot of them in my Grade 8 exam, which, along with poor aural and sight-reading skills, resulted in my merit. )  That's why I came here looking for advice...

Currently I can play all my major, melodic minor and harmonic minor scales hands separate at a speed of 170-180 (with occasional mistakes), and arpeggios (major, minor, V7, diminished 7th) hand separate at half that speed (with anything-but-occasional mistakes). I'm having problems coordinating the two hands if I play those hands together (octave, third, or sixth apart) at that speed though. How can I improve on that?

How about the scales where you play a third apart, but with the same hand? There were only two keys in Grade 8 and I totally sucked at those. How can I improve on those, and how are the other keys played?

As for the other stuff, chromatic scales are fine to me (but isn't it fine to everyone ). I haven't been playing in contrary motion since the Grade 8 syllabus didn't require that; should I restart?

(I'm not on lessons at the moments; it's only a short break for half a year or so, but I don't want to forget everything - indeed, I'm playing more than before...)

Also, what's the best sequence to practise them? Chromatically, or in circles of fifths? Should I play major scales next to their relative minors, or next to minor starting on the same note (ie C Major -> C minor)? or should I be separating majors and minors anyway?

Thanks in advance.

[justanamateur]

Never mind, just found this post while idly browsing PS. https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,8110.msg81884.html#msg81884  Guess I should search harder next time before asking, haha.

[vansh]

Never mind, just found this post while idly browsing PS. https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php/topic,8110.msg81884.html#msg81884   Guess I should search harder next time before asking, haha.

Thanks for the link! I was actually going to discuss how to do scales more quickly (for Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody 2), but your link gives a lot of good info including a thorough description of the (misnamed) "thumb over" technique. Plenty more food for thought as I work my way through the piece...

Incidentally, one of the links in the link is someone asking about how quickly they can do scales, except it seems like no one ever bothered to respond to him on that point. I would post in that thread with my details except I've already cast undead on another thread this week and I don't want people to start mistaking me for a necromancer so I'll post here instead.   For me, for the Hungarian Rhapsody (A major and F# major, right hand only), I cover 3 octaves in around 1.6 seconds, which is almost 200 beats per minute in 16th notes (about 13 notes per second). (By the way, in HR2, it's actually 7 notes (full octave) per beat, rather than 4 notes per beat.)

By comparison, Hamelin's HR2 recording shows that he does all 3 octaves in 1.0 seconds, which corresponds to 315 beats per minute in 16th notes (21 notes per second)! From the recordings I've seen of other professional pianists who actually play the full scale during this section, they usually cover the 3 octaves in about 1.2 seconds, which is 262 beats per minute in 16th notes (17.5 notes per second). The majority though will do some "other stuff" (such as skipping notes or doing arpeggios instead), basically flub or cheat their way through the section. Again, this is for right hand only, A major and F# major scales, for 3 octaves (the left hand is just playing accompaniment -- although it's jumping back and forth). Anyway, so that's some food for thought for working more on scales.