I do not understand why people seem to cheery pick.
Maybe because many of us are adult amateurs with limited time and other resources to use for our piano practice and we actually want to advance in the skill of playing real musical pieces that we feel worth to play? At least for me what you call cherry picking is actually prioritizing. An important skill when one gets older...Just like the op I have no interest in playing classical era music. I do love some Baroque music, a lot of 20th century pieces and some Romantic stuff. For me the benefit of scales has been more in the theoretical undestanding of music than actual playing. The pieces I play are rarely playable with standard scale fingerings anyway. Of course it's useful to thoughtfully practice scales, but again, one must make intelligent decisions about how to use the limited time one has. If I was 7 years old, things might be different (although I was not actually introduced to scales at that age).
Wow, I never thought of it like that: prioritising.That brings a new perspective.Thank you.My ability to perform improved when I learned my scales, If only for fluency and even performance.
I don't doubt that at all. But I assume that you have been playing regularly since childhood, so you have had more time to spend on all aspects of playing and less need to compromise.I have spend some time with scales every now and then, but if I really wanted to learn to play them all fluently and fast, I might be dead before I ever got the chance to actually benefit form it in playing pieces. Also playing through scales as a warm up would take away precious part of my already limited practice time which may only be 20-30 minutes in the mornings before getting to work. I need that time to learn new material for my weekly lessons. I don't usually feel the need to warm up anyway, since it's my head that I need to get together, not my hands and scales don't really help with that, they just make me mentally tired
However, I am truly of the mindset that the ends always justifies the means; that being, "I want to get good", results in "I do whatever it takes".
It doesn't take very long to learn the scales either so I don't believe its a task that is to big to accomplish late in life.
For me scales are very useful. But they are not useful because scales occur in the pieces I play and practicing scales everyday makes it easier to learn those pieces. If that's what you think scales are good for, then I think it's better just to practice the scale passages from the pieces you are working on, rather than going through the circle of fifths on scales and arpeggios every day.But I like doing scales for a completely different reason. Once you learn them you don't have to think about fingering or notes, at all. There are not a lot of interesting interpretive questions to distract you. So, if you want to work on playing with the right sort of wrist relaxation or the right feeling in the arms or the right degree of work in the fingers, you can do the scales and focus entirely on one physical aspect of your technique. The ability to keep my wrists loose and flexible, and to immediately relax fingers after using them, to avoid involuntary contractions in muscles I'm not using are all things I worked on through scales. As others have said, there's no one answer to your question. Nothing to do but try it and see.
Assuming Broger was referring to my post, I don't know why he would disagree with me .....
Also being able to identify strings of notes in terms of a scale or parts of the scale rather than isolated individual notes helps with memory work.
I've also read that people learn these so that they can identify them. I don't have this problem. When I was learning Debussy's La fille aux cheveux de lin, the #1 thing I read about this was complaints about the key signature. I didn't have this problem. My problem was the execution, which had to be learned very slowly. I can see when something is a major chord on the page; it is another issue, though, to execute the major chord in context, and to choose an appropriate fingering for the articulation and phrasing I want.
Mentioning that scalespassages from an actual piece of music are not the same as playing them every morning like a robot is absolutely true.When you play them like some stupid exercise, which they are not (Taubman,Golandsky), then the illusion is that when you run into this particular scale/key passage (in a particular piece of music), then your fingers (which have absolutely no motor-neurons) will automatically translate the results accordingly.From personal experience, I can assure this is bunk. There is an two octave E Major Scale in the Mozart A Major Piano Concerto (K 488), and it is like I have never played this scale before when I get to this passage. That means when you learn a piece of music, your brain is wired to that specific experience.So, do you need to know the fingerings for all of your scales, broken chords, and arpeggios? Yes, of course you do.Does playing them every day, like some stupid Hanon Exercise effectuate better facility at the piano. No, in my opinion, it does not!
I think my rephrasing of the question would be: Are scales really useful to me?And, the answer is individual.For me, the answer is yes. It was only when I began practicing scales daily without fail that I seemed to develop an "ear" for the flow of music.I've always felt that intuition was the byproduct of experience combined with insight into that experience. I feel that scales give me the experience of the structure of music and insight into the flow of that structure.I know this is poorly expressed...but the answer for me is yes.
I like to think that we are all on the same journey to becoming better musicians, though we may be taking different paths.To each their own, and I wish everyone well.
I don't have this problem. If I see a scale, I recognize it, but I haven't seen any point to just rote practicing of scales, because fingering has to be modified depending on context.
As I mentioned in the first post:To clarify, I can't rely on fingerings that I find in a scales/arpeggios/chords book for every chord in that piece.
Remember your scales/chords and patterns can be played with multiple fingering option and not necessarily starting on the root.
What does it mean to recognise it though?
playing scales every day does NOTHING for 99% of the pianists studying the classical repertoire.
I recognise all the notes of a scale, or of any harmonic subset for that matter, at once, and as a whole over the entire keyboard. This is partly visual, partly tactile and partly aural, but all the notes within the set are available to me "at once" as it were, and not serially. I hazard a guess that I have ended up like this through improvisation, but I don't know for certain. I do know for certain that most other players I know do not think in this way.
What does it mean to recognise it though? If you fully understand a scale form you can play random patterns all over it without needing to even look at your hands.
Guys...I think we can come to the same conclusions here.....-Scales are important to some people, they actually improve your dexterity on playing scales and other passages like scales.-Scales are not important to some people, because people are different and that is just the way. Scales are boring. Scales are a waste of time yati yati yah.-So you choose if scales are important for yourself and practice scales if you want to. I just summarized, because there is little point in arguing anymore... Everyone is different, everyone plays different, everyone needs different things.I suggest the OP to lock this thread. The OP can play scales if he/she feels like it is needed/wanted.Natsu
This isn't true, particularly in my case.
If you read my first post, you'll see that I know theory well. I don't have to think about what individual notes are in a scale, but physical execution is a different issue.
I think it's unreasonable to assume that if you know how scales and chords work, you shouldn't have to look at your hands. I imagine unlike most people on this forum, I didn't learn piano technique and theory simultaneously.
These new members gotta calm down, it's not a game of seeing how many people you can get agree with you and get used to repetition otherwsise pretty much nothing would be discussed here.
Well you can make up any situation you want in your case. It is a situation where you don't know that you don't know, do you really understand what it means to fully recognise and understand scales in context to hundreds of pieces?
If you read my responses you would see I asked what does it mean to know it, I never segregated theory from practical.It's not unreasonable in fact you never have to look at your hands unless you are doing large leaps and need to initially measure it. You will never be able to sight read if you need to look at your hands, knowing your scales inside out not just knowing of them and a bit here and there, knowing it completely and study it in depth, it will allow you to play blindly and even predict future notes in a piece, combine this all with harmonic sense, chord progressions etc, you get more automated.
...My opinion is no, as the theoretical understanding of a scale and the physical execution of a scale are quite different. I know how I would finger that scale (1-2-1-2-3-4-1), but that's only because I'm familiar with how major scales are fingered, and I've essentially modified what I've learned previously (so there's a natural bias there). I don't know what the "proper" fingering is for this scale, by the way. If I knew someone who had no experience with piano whatsoever, but knew how to construct the C whole tone scale, I wouldn't expect them to sit at the piano blindfolded and be able to play the scale without fail. This is all I am saying. No arguments intended. Is this situation unreasonable?
Yes, I played clarinet for a decade.
You seem to have misinterpreted my question. Here was, basically, the essence of my question: I've interpreted your statements as saying, if I can't play a scale out of a piano without looking at my hands, then I have to think about every individual note that is in the scale and there is absolutely no exception to this statement.
I don't agree with this statement. Here's why: for example, I can tell you that an octave whole tone scale is C - D - E - F# - G# - A# - C. I don't even have to think for more than a few seconds about that. I've internalized and done enough practice with intervallic relationships that I can look at a piece of sheet music and immediately identify a C whole tone scale. Does that mean that any person who knows how to construct a scale can just go to a piano blindfolded and play the scale without fail (and might we add, with "proper" fingering)?
My opinion is no, as the theoretical understanding of a scale and the physical execution of a scale are quite different.
If I knew someone who had no experience with piano whatsoever, but knew how to construct the C whole tone scale, I wouldn't expect them to sit at the piano blindfolded and be able to play the scale without fail. This is all I am saying. No arguments intended.
But we talking piano, your experience in clarinet won't help you physically PLAY the scales on a piano well (maybe help your ear to guide you to the right notes). It is not about simply identifying the scales in a piece but being able to react to it and use it to control part of what you are doing. There is no exception, if you think you fully understand scales and know them inside out back to front and know all the permutations of fingerings found in scales, if you have played them so many times they have become routine, then you will be able to play them without watching your fingers. Explain to me why one would want to look at their hands that is more important, if you are monitoring your fingers then you really don't know the shape of the scale at a masters level you need more instruction, there is still room to improve your affinity for scales.Everyone works differently but if you must ALWAYS look at your hands there is a problem. It is not a matter of just playing scales as a chain of individual notes but playing pieces in certain keys etc, you should know the contour of the keyboard based on the key, your hands can ignore the notes you should avoid and can apply all the accidentals as they are written. If you really know your scale positions this is the skill you have and you don't have to look at your hands at all. I did not segregate the two in my discussion, they work hand in hand, when learning your instrument you need to apply the theory in context to playing your instrumentWell I dont know how you came to the conclusion that this is what I was talking about. Once someone knows their scales well then they should be able to play it blindfolded. So this is a good test for yourself, if you say you know your scales well enough then you should be a rather proficient in your reading skills as you know the form of the piano and how to move from them all into a new key without fuss. Yes scales as individual notes going up and down are important, but also where do you go from there, what do you change and investigate? Too many simply play root note scales and stick to the same fingerings, they won't improvise on the scale, they won't make up patterns on the scales, they dont really understand how scale knowledge helps them to sight read their music, and so on and on an on.
lol, this is a totally made up statistic.Playing scales can actually be very important but is not the only thing that should be practiced.Once you've learned a scale it's also good to learn it starting from each note, possibly (but not always) applying a different fingering for each mode, plus ascending and descending seconds/thirds/fourths/fifths/sixths/sevenths/octaves, plus groups of two/three/four/five fingers starting from each note of the scale, plus repeating all of the above with double seconds/thirds/fourths/fifths/sixths/sevenths/octaves... Once you practice all this, the "passages-in-pieces-have-different-fingerings" controversy is basically solved.If you do the same above for arpeggios and chords, basically you've covered an enormous amount of material contained in most actual pieces.As someone else said, this should hold true even for atonal pieces, as atonal is not a proper term as it shouldn't really mean "without tonality" but rather "all tonalities at once"(in fact Schoenberg at the time preferred to use the term Pantonality).Now, the practice routine described above is very very long and takes a lot of effort and concentration. Whether it's worth doing instead of just practicing pieces is a matter of personal preference: if you want immediate results now, just go for the pieces. If you want to go slower now but learn pieces faster in the (possibly distant) future, then do practice your scales, arpeggios and chords.This is my own personal humble opinion based on my own limited knowledge.
Extremely well said. That is why Frederic Chopin taught his students to play their scales all starting with the thumb and fifth finger, regardless of the key.Do most piano books or teachers (the 99%) teach this centuries old method? No, they do not.I play the Schumann Concerto, and if you are going to stick to the traditional thumb on the white keys rule, you better have the greatest technique on earth. Otherwise, you will never master this wonderful piece.As alluded to by this particular post, and stressed over and over again by Arnold Schonberg, scales are theory and theory is comprised of scales, and their corresponding chords (broken, arpeggiated or blocked).Once again, my compliments to "kalospiano."
I would advise learning all 228 scales and 1490 unique modes. https://www.allthescales.org/Get rid of the thought that scales are boring. They are God given/of the universe.
Topic: Another "are scales really useful?" thread: help change my opinion if I'm wrong 