Scales and Arpegios *shivers*

[pianist_joe_bloggs]

Hi Teachers,

I'm a student currently doing my ABRSM grade 8, but i've hit a brick wall. You see, i'm getting along with my pieces fine, but, Scales and Arpegios *shivers*.

I can do them if i put my mind to it, but, how can i motivate myself to study them so i can learn them all. i'm always setting aside time to do them, but i just descend into playing pieces and not scales and such. Are there any tricks you can suggest?

Thanks.

Pianist_Joe_Bloggs

[BoliverAllmon]

Hi Teachers,

I'm a student currently doing my ABRSM grade 8, but i've hit a brick wall. You see, i'm getting along with my pieces fine, but, Scales and Arpegios *shivers*.

I can do them if i put my mind to it, but, how can i motivate myself to study them so i can learn them all. i'm always setting aside time to do them, but i just descend into playing pieces and not scales and such. Are there any tricks you can suggest?

Thanks.

Pianist_Joe_Bloggs

suck it up and do it.

[lostinidlewonder]

Turn off the lights. 

[rlefebvr]

If you have no problem learning pieces, why not get one with tons of arpegios in it.

That way you get to practise and learn at the same time.

Just a thought

[dinosaurtales]

If you have no problem learning pieces, why not get one with tons of arpegios in it.

That way you get to practise and learn at the same time.

Just a thought

Hell that's what I do!  The other way, I call the Scale Piece.  By the time you work out all the fingerings to do 4 octaves with both hands, then in thirds, then opposites, etc etc. You could have learned a really major sonata!  Crap!  learn the sonata!  It probaly has a bunch of scales and arpeggios in it anyways.  Some of this stuff is just work for the sake of work - the old puritan thang.  geez!

[puma]

   You could try playing them musically...ppp to fff.  Or you could try the other advice taken and learn a piece that uses them.

[lagin]

Hi, I'm working on my gr. 9 RCM (Canada thing).  I love scales, but share your horror of arpeggios.  Why don't you decide that say every three days you want to cover all your technique once.  My teacher makes me do each scale or whatever 2 times back to back so I get more practice and learn it faster.  If you did that, you would in fact cover everyhing twice every three days.  Count how many scales and arp. you have and divide the number by three.  Make sure you don't stick all the hard ones on the same day.  Spread it out evenly.  Then make you self do it, and no pieces until it's done!  As you get faster, you'll end up with more time for pieces anyway.  Eventually you'll be able to do it all in one day real fast.  This takes time, believe me!!
     
 I must say I don't agree with substituting pieces for technical exercises just from my own experience.  I can not touch my pieces for days, but if I do my technique then when I do get back to my pieces, they're way easier and faster than before, even though I didn't practice them!  It does pay off.  I have to do every arpeggio and inversion there is plus all the scales every day (except not all the formula pattern ones where you go up and down and contrary motion, and up and down....)  The normal ones I do every day, so I'm with you here.  We'll get it if we perservere.

[anja]

Clara Schumann used to read a book while going through all her technique, according to her daughter Eugenie. But, okay, she's an exception. I had the same problem as you. You will not be able to finish your requirements in three days; as the poster stated it takes a while. So here's what you do. Get a big piece of poster paper and fill it with little boxes, one for each scale or formula pattern, or whatever. Mine has 360 boxes, each labeled. When you've tried the scale, but a check mark. When it's satisfactory, put an x overtop.  I do about 14 boxes in ten days. It's all very slow-about twenty or thirty minutes a day. As the chart fills up, you feel happier and happier. Stick it by the piano. Every so often, mark down what per cent you've completed. By the way, this is not fastidious; this is necessary!

[lagin]

Well, you can do it in three days if you're close to speed.  I have 330 different requirements that my teacher wants done twice each day.  And it is finally doable, but it takes a couple hours even though I'm almost up to speed on everything.  Mind you, she's worked out a really time efficent way where for example, I do all my scales chromatically--C, c- harm., c- mel, C#, c#- harm., ect., without repeating the bottom note each time and only allowing one metronome tick between "letter" changes.

[nomis]

Hi Teachers,

I'm a student currently doing my ABRSM grade 8, but i've hit a brick wall. You see, i'm getting along with my pieces fine, but, Scales and Arpegios *shivers*.

I can do them if i put my mind to it, but, how can i motivate myself to study them so i can learn them all. i'm always setting aside time to do them, but i just descend into playing pieces and not scales and such. Are there any tricks you can suggest?

Thanks.

Pianist_Joe_Bloggs

I practised one key a day. So for Monday, I would play all my C major and minor scales and arpeggios, starting with staccato first, because that's was what I was weak at. I usually played my arpeggios (particularly the dominant 7ths) 1st because they were my weak spot. It helps to have a notebook, stating what key you've done today, and what key you're practising tomorrow.

[whynot]

Wow, is this what you conservatory people have to do??  Two hours of technique every day before you can work on your pieces?  I'm impressed, although a little horrified at the same time.  I think definitely DON'T emulate Clara Schumann by amusing yourself with a book while working on technique.  If you don't watch and listen to yourself, you won't know whether you did it well, just whether you did it.  We're musicians, we work with SOUND, we have to pay attention to our sound all the time. 

Philosophically I like the idea of using pieces to work technique, and that usually works for me, but I'm (almost) old, so I've been playing scales etc for a really (!) long time.  I don't know, for someone with less time in, probably some very specific practice would be helpful.  No etudes, though, unless they're beautiful and performable.  I don't see doing every single scale every single day unless you don't really know what the notes are for each scale (or if you're going to be mercilessly tested on them in public, that's kind of a good reason, too).  So many of the physical patterns occur in several different keys, and if a particular motion works for you, then the scales that use it should be in good shape.  I know my weak keys, and I also have two stamina exercises that I try to get to most days.  Josef Hoffmann said that if you can't play your exercises, you'd better practice them, but if you can play them, he didn't see why you have to be everlastingly practicing them.  Hm.  It depends on where you're at.  But as I said, I'm not in the exam cycle that many posters are in; maybe they don't have the option to just (mostly) play pieces, I don't know. 

The key-of-the-day approach by nomis is good.  I use that on another instrument that I have less-developed technique on.  I have a short but thorough cycle of things I do every day (well... not quite) in one key.     

[lagin]

We don't HAVE TO PLAY our technique for two hours every day before our pieces, mind you for my grade and the speed I'm at this is about how long it takes.  Sometimes I put off tech. till the end of the day, but I'm usually sorry when I do.  I like to get it over with so I can just enjoy working on my pieces.  I do it all everyday because right now my teacher is working on building my strength and endurance, and I have an exam coming up where they will ask me for technical exercises at random, though not in public .  It's really helped me, and made learning pieces way easier.  These exercises are worth 10 percent of your total grade in Canadian exams.

[ramseytheii]

Hi Teachers,

I'm a student currently doing my ABRSM grade 8, but i've hit a brick wall. You see, i'm getting along with my pieces fine, but, Scales and Arpegios *shivers*.

I can do them if i put my mind to it, but, how can i motivate myself to study them so i can learn them all. i'm always setting aside time to do them, but i just descend into playing pieces and not scales and such. Are there any tricks you can suggest?

Thanks.

Pianist_Joe_Bloggs

Was it Anton Rubinstein who said, "If you are not interested in practicing scales, practice them until you are interested."

And Heifetz who said, "If you don't practice scales, it means you are afraid of them."

In the Yale School of Music there is a photo of the aged Franz Liszt, underneath which someone pasted a note, "Why should I practice my scales?""

Walter Ramsey

[chocolatedog]

Change to Trinity Guilldhall.....there aren't as many scales!!!! (Oh I should have said Trinity Guildhall exams don't come into effect until January 2007, so if you're taking grade 8 in November, you've just got a heck of a lot of scales to learn....sorry.....) But if you're not taking it until next year, I would recommend T/G maybe. As a teacher I'm really fed up with seeing good pupils with decent playing ability struggle to learn all the scales for grade 6 and above....afterall, what is it testing? Just memory!!! I'm very tempted by the T/G exam board as they only request a few scales for each grade but the candidate also has to learn and play 3 short exercises designed to demonstrate ability of different techniques required for playing - eg at grade 1, co-ordination, tone, balance and voicing, and finger strength and wrist flexibility. How does playing 7 scales (as required by AB) demonstrate the same? (That's obviously just an example as I only have the T/G grade 1 book to hand!!!    Back to my pupil - she was spending stupid amounts of time just trying to learn all the patterns etc - and we had plenty of preparation time, so it wasn't as though we were short of time....she was fine up to grade 5, but as soon as we introduced the melodic minor scales, she forgot and muddled up her harmonics, and when we worked on those she muddled her melodics again. I tried everything I knew, but she still struggled. And the really annoying thing was, because it was taking up her time at home spending time trying to get the darned scales all sorted out, it was taking away time that she could have been spending on her pieces/ aural/sight-reading....So I'm really tempted to change boards - and I'm beginning to suggest it to other people to.....

[loops]

Back to my pupil - she was spending stupid amounts of time just trying to learn all the patterns etc - and we had plenty of preparation time, so it wasn't as though we were short of time....she was fine up to grade 5, but as soon as we introduced the melodic minor scales, she forgot and muddled up her harmonics, and when we worked on those she muddled her melodics again. I tried everything I knew, but she still struggled. And the really annoying thing was, because it was taking up her time at home spending time trying to get the darned scales all sorted out, it was taking away time that she could have been spending on her pieces/ aural/sight-reading....So I'm really tempted to change boards - and I'm beginning to suggest it to other people to.....

Gosh, poor thing!! I'm neither a professional nor a music teacher, but this works for me: I don't remember 36 scales, I don't think I could and as you more or less say yourself, life's too short, certainly practice time is....I only remember how to remember. So I know the 12 major scales really well, and the 2 formulae for getting from the associated major scale. And since I usually can't remember how many semitones up or down to the associated major,  I remember only that A minor is based on C major and figure it out. I definitely don't work out the whole scale in my head first, that's too hard, but rather concentrate on counting to 6 and 7 once I've started. Sometimes the fingering is a little creative!!  After a while the "figuring out" process is so fast it's as though you remember the scale itself.
I think people learn the relationships and maybe think they only need to use it once to get the scale, and thereafter the scale should be memorised. But I derive it every time. Helps get it right under pressure as well....

What do other people do?

[princess_moose]

I agree with chocolatedog, switch to Trinity Guildhall. I am. The amount of scales you have to learn for AB is ridiclous.

[tompilk]

i played the scarlatti sonata in D and that had loads of scales in it! good practise... scarlatti really seem to be a good ALTERNATIVE to technical exercises - even horowitz said!
also, the scales are good practise and good for technique - mine improved - and i canstill play my scales 3/4 a year after my exam! they've really stuck with me...
Tom

[princess_moose]

A few scales might be good for technique but the sheer amount set for ABRSM exams is far too many. That is not helping technqiue it is merely a memory test, which doesn't help pupils who find it generally hard to memorise.

Trinity Guildhalls new scale syllabus is much more accessible and pupil friendly.

[bernhard]

Hi Teachers,

I'm a student currently doing my ABRSM grade 8, but i've hit a brick wall. You see, i'm getting along with my pieces fine, but, Scales and Arpegios *shivers*.

I can do them if i put my mind to it, but, how can i motivate myself to study them so i can learn them all. i'm always setting aside time to do them, but i just descend into playing pieces and not scales and such. Are there any tricks you can suggest?

Thanks.

Pianist_Joe_Bloggs

Many people (encouraged by exams no doubt) practise scales on a musical vacuum. It is not clear to them why they are doing it, or what exactly will they achieve by doing it – apart from passing the exam.

Yet scales are of supreme importance. Why? Because a piece of music is a scale (usually more then one) out of order. The most important concept to grasp when studying scales – and practice should be mostly geared toward the grasping of this concept – is that the notes of a scale are not all equal. They have  hierarchy. I wish my teachers have pointed this out to me – apart from memorizing scale degree names in theory – and had analysed pieces showing the import of this concept.

How should one then, practise scales?

First of all, never in a musical vacuum. That is do not practise a scale by itself  - some people do rotas to cover all keys in a week, for instance – instead, figure out the scales your current piece uses, and make part of the practice time for that piece the practice of the relevant scale(s) and arpeggio(s).

Next – and this is truly the most fun way to practise scale ever – do scale free improvisation. Have a look here to get the gist of it:

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,3499.msg31548.html#msg31548
(using scales as the basis for free improvisation)

Finally, make sure you are using the best possible fingering – the orthodox one printed in Hanon and in most scale manuals is far from best. Have a look here:

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2619.msg22756.html#msg22756
(unorthodox fingering for all major and minor scales plus an explanation)

You may also be interested in these threads:

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,5003.msg47438.html#msg47438
(summary of links on the importance of working on scales)

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,4752.msg47443.html#msg47443
(Antoher summary of scale links)

Just the tip of the melting iceberg.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.