Thought you knew your scales? Try this!

I have to admit that I did not practice scales and arpeggios as a kid. I hated them, those meaningless, boring snake-like things with flats and sharps and fingerings that followed complicated rules that remained a mystery to me. (Just on the side, I hated fingerings, too.) Stubborn, I resisted my teachers’ efforts to plead, coax, bribe and threaten me into practicing scales. In the end, they gave up on the scales and I continued lessons. There was some scale practicing at college, but it didn’t have a lasting impact.

Ten years ago, during my “piano sabbatical” in New York City I needed a warm up before I plunged into my 6 + hours practice day. Scales kept coming out of the practice rooms at International House, where I lived, and I assumed that Seymour Bernstein assumed that I practiced scales. So, I started to practice scales (and arpeggios) and it became a habit. How long it took me to play C-major 4 octaves, in parallel motion without either running out of fingers or having “left overs” at the end - don’t ask.

It wasn’t until I worked my way through the 1st book of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier that the concept of the circle of 5ths and the different keys began to fascinate me. First of all, I came out of the project a much more fluent reader of all 24 keys. I discovered that part of the “key” issue was a reading issue, and once I looked at the keyboard, the reading issue dissolved into patterns of black and white keys - not unlike knitting patterns. Who cared what the keys were called? If I connected those patterns with the notes I saw on the page, life became a lot easier.

Over time, the standard scale patterns became boring. Scales in unison rarely appear in  repertoire, and they sound much more interesting if you play in 3rds or 6ths, or how about 4ths, 5ths ....and 2nds. You don’t want to do scales in 2nds too extensively if you are sharing the house with anyone else.   

And how about a different scale in each hand: D-major in one hand, and E-flat in the other. This sounds like a piano that is very much out of tune. Can your ear follow each scale? 

Plan for a 4 octave scale (in 3rds or 6ths) and keep changing from major to minor and vice versa. Go up in major and down in minor. Change with every octave. Why is it so much harder to play scales down than up? If your scale going up is much better than the scale going down, replace it by an arpeggio. Using this shortcut saves time and you get to practice more scales going down. 

Arpeggios also make excellent connections between different scales, D7, diminished, augmented - how many different ways can you find to get around the circle of 5ths? 

The goal is not so much perfection as exploration and stimulating the mind and the ear. What does this sound like? Can I anticipate the sound that is to follow? 

I’m having fun, so much fun that I sometimes have to remind myself that there is, after all, repertoire to practice.

If I ever run out of options, I’m going to knit a scarf in a B-major pattern.... 

  

Knitting Pattern: Scarf in B- major, 2 octaves in 6ths      © Birgit Matzerath 2010

	1	2	3	1	2	3	4	1	2	3	1	2	3	4	5
RH
LH
RH
LH
	2	1	4	3	2	1	3	2	1	4	3	2	1	4	3

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