Do you think scales/arpeggios should be practiced hands together or separate?

[perprocrastinate]

Title.

[j_menz]

Surely the whole point of scales in thirds, sixths etc, or in similar or contrary motion, and arp equivalents is that they be done hands together.

If you're a regular HS person, you might start off that way, but the sooner you put 'em together the sooner you're doing the actual exercise.

[perprocrastinate]

Ah, crap. I should have listened to my teacher. I am not a very smart person.

[awesom_o]

Hands together in four-octave formula pattern, separated by a 3rd, 6th, 8th, 10th, and 16th.

 

[perprocrastinate]

Hands together in four-octave formula pattern, separated by a 3rd, 6th, 8th, 10th, and 16th.

 

Not that I doubt you if that's truly what you meant, but did you mean to say 15th instead of 16th? Two octaves and a major second seems kinda weird to me.

[awesom_o]

Not that I doubt you if that's truly what you meant, but did you mean to say 15th instead of 16th? Two octaves and a major second seems kinda weird to me.

Hah you caught me in a not-so-rare moment of mathematical ignorance.

Of course, I meant two octaves.

[j_menz]

Two octaves and a major second seems kinda weird to me.

LOL, you need to broaden your horizons.

Take a look at the first Ligeti Etude for even greater weirdness.

[awesom_o]

I also find it useful to practice arpeggios, tonic, V7 and dim7, and their inversions, in formula pattern.

Sometimes when I feel like an extra workout, I practice double third scales in formula pattern also.

[brogers70]

There's a place for practicing scales and arpeggios hands separate. If you a relative beginner and you are working out the correct hand positions and motions for the scales and arpeggios, doing them hands together may be too distracting. Also you may take a while to train yourself to hear both hands, and until you do that one hand's sound can cover up unevenness in the other hand. Of course you need to work to get them together and ultimately end up with a regimen something like the one awesome_o described above. But as a relative beginner (which he absolutely is not), and even when you are refining your technique, there can be benefits to practicing hand separate.

[awesom_o]

There's a place for practicing scales and arpeggios hands separate. If you a relative beginner and you are working out the correct hand positions and motions for the scales and arpeggios, doing them hands together may be too distracting. Also you may take a while to train yourself to hear both hands, and until you do that one hand's sound can cover up unevenness in the other hand. Of course you need to work to get them together and ultimately end up with a regimen something like the one awesome_o described above. But as a relative beginner (which he absolutely is not), and even when you are refining your technique, there can be benefits to practicing hand separate.

This is true. When I overhauled my technique around age 17, my new teacher did NOT use formula patterns. All scales were to be played hands separately. He liked to hear them hands separate, going from top to bottom to top.

I would say easily 95% of pianists can play scales with their RH better than their LH.
Isolating the less developed hand and developing its fluency in scale playing is extremely beneficial for people in this group.

It's really important that your LH scales sound just as beautiful, expressive, and impressive as your RH scales!

[ajspiano]

Hands together in four-octave formula pattern, separated by a 3rd, 6th, 8th, 10th, and 16th.

is that all?

I give my students different time signatures, accents in unusal places, ask for poly-rhythms, patterns, scale one hand arp the other.. the facility to change direction on any given scale degree.. alternate fingerings.. 

if I'm in a mood I ask them to change key in the middle of the scale.

[awesom_o]

If your technique is good enough to play major and minor formula patterns separated by various intervals, it's time to move on to creative improvisation!

[timothy42b]

Abby Whiteside believed scales were valuable but wasted on beginners.

Gieseking was very clear, scales are not to be done HT.  Scales are where you really learn to listen, for absolute evenness of tone and time, and that simply cannot be done except HS. 

[awesom_o]

Scales are where you really learn to listen, for absolute evenness of tone and time, and that simply cannot be done except HS. 

The formula patterns are fantastic for developing evenness of hands-together scale-playing.

If you always play your scales hands separately and never progress to the formula patterns, you will always struggle with evenness in hands-together scale-playing.

In my experience, students who master the formula patterns in all keys have no trouble with evenness when playing scales hands-together.

[ajspiano]

If your technique is good enough to play major and minor formula patterns separated by various intervals, it's time to move on to creative improvisation!

I tend to find that many students arrive at my door with a fear of improvisation, and I've never once found that scales in such a fashion unlocked that. Combinations of scales/arps, patterns and altered rhythms on the other hand does a fairly good job of getting them going though because its such a small step to just improvise once they've mastered a couple of variations.