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That's really interesting. I've always wondered how much is too much time to spend on one scale in one sitting. This morning it took about 20 minutes for me to feel like I completed anything while working on the C scale. I guess that's about right according to this idea. I always hear people talking about playing all your scales and arpeggios everyday or to alternate on 3 or 4 a day to cover them throughout the week. I like the idea of working on one scale for one or two weeks. It takes me more than 2 hours just to go through all the scales and arpeggios, which I've never been able to do on a daily basis.

Varcon, that is fascinating.
In regards to advice on the thumb and similar things, at the same time the exercises seem effective yet one would wish to have a teacher. The author clearly intends the book for teachers, and he also admonishes the teachers to be careful with some of the physical exercises, since injury can result if done improperly or too hastily. While still forced to be teacherless, I would touch the physical parts very cautiously. There is no way of knowing whether one is doing them the right way. That goes especially for the part that involves a gradual stretching of the hand. That is a different matter from simply being able to orient yourself on the keyboard in terms of scales and arpeggios.

I have a chart that gets me through eight scale exercises a day and goes through the twelve major scales and twelve minor (harmonic and melodic) scales in twelve days.

It works like this :

Day 1 :
- C major scale, parallel motion, 4 octaves
- G major scale, separated by a third, 4 octaves
- B major scale, separated by a sixth, 4 octaves
- d minor scale, harmonic, four octaves
- e minor scale, melodic, four octaves
- Gb major scale, "forumla pattern,"[1] four octaves
- f minor scale, "formula pattern," four octaves
- chromatic scale beginning on C, four octaves

Day 2 : the same exercises with different keys for each

Day 3 : etc., etc.

Similarly with arpeggios, major, minor, dominant and diminished

I think this system keeps me a little more alert to what I'm doing than it would if I did all eight exercises for the same major and minor scale each day.

[1] forumla pattern :

This is sometimes called a "formula pattern" of playing a major or harmonic minor scale :

1) Start hands together one octave apart and play in parallel motion the ascending scale for two octaves.

2) At the two octave mark, contrary motion begins : the right hand continues ascending for two octaves while the left hand descends for two octaves, arriving at a point where the two hands are four octaves a part.

3) Continue contrary motion from this point with the left hand now ascending and the right hand descending for two octaves until both hands are one octave apart.

4) Now continue ascending, both hands in parallel motion for two octaves

5) Then descend in parallel motion for two octaves

6) Then contrary motion : the left hand continues to descend for two octaves while the right hand ascends for two octaves until both hands are once again four octaves apart.

7) Continue contrary motion with the left hand now ascending and the right hand descending for two octaves until both hands are one octave apart.

8) Finish the scale by descending in parallel motion for the final two octaves to arrive with both hands at the starting point.

Regards,

I learned something important about my own scale practice this last lesson. I felt I'd done really well with my assignment that time, which was the black key harmonic minors, 4 octave. I thought I'd been doing pretty well and expected to please my teacher with my progress.

That's not quite what happened.

Fortunately, I realized that the *way* I'd been practicing had caused this disappointment. I'd been playing each scale over and over, then moving on to the next scale. What was really happening was that when I wasn't using exactly the right fingerings or whatever the first time through, it would correct itself...then subsequent repetitions would go beautifully. But I wasn't really paying enough attention to getting it right that first time through.

So what I've done this time is focus on playing each scale perfectly, with the correct fingerings, *the first time through*...and only playing each scale once and then moving on to the next scale (using that "you only get one chance" pressure to increase attention) before moving on to the next scale...but playing through the series of scales multiple times.

As embarrassing as it is to admit this rather "DUH" kind of error on my part, I thought I would mention it in case anyone else was doing the same thing with the same results.

Keystring: Yes, you do need a qualified teacher so you don't do something that would damage your mechanism. I've played and practised for years now and never have had finger, wrist, arm damage. I credit my teachers for that now that so many are complaining of carpel tunnel and other damage.

My regimen is somewhat different from BruceD--who is always logical and gives well thought out advice--but planned so that in a week I cover scales in both single and double note format along with a Hanon exercise chosen at random. The rest of the technique comes from the pieces and occasional holding exercises.
I have about 7 etudes I select for different reasons and have days when I do one set and days when I do other sets--Usually set 1 on M/Th--set 2 on T/F--and set 3 on W/Sat. Sunday is my day to select whatever at random or not play at all. I try to plan a program that covers a variety of technical things as well as provide musical satisfaction to me and, hopefully, to an audience if I decide to play publicly.

Back to scales--you don't necessarily have to do them all in one day. Find a logical grouping and alternate them during the week. Start over on Monday. Margolies had me do scales chromatically rather than the circle of fifths generally followed. If you follow sensible physical approaches to playing you should not be tense and should have no damage to your playing mechanism. Follow Dr. Cooke's advice--it will work!

"...This morning it took about 20 minutes for me to feel like I completed anything while working on the C scale. I guess that's about right according to this idea. I always hear people talking about playing all your scales and arpeggios everyday or to alternate on 3 or 4 a day to cover them throughout the week. I like the idea of working on one scale for one or two weeks. It takes me more than 2 hours just to go through all the scales and arpeggios, which I've never been able to do on a daily basis..."

Bruce and some of the others who have posted are very advanced players. When learning the scales, it's a different story. No doubt others are quicker on the uptake than I am, but it took me quite a bit of time and labor to acquire the skill of scale playing, and I still find that if I don't keep it up, my ability goes south pretty fast.

Only you can find what works for you. I try to run through them, fast, every day; or sharps one day, flats the other. But if one gives me trouble, I keep at it until the fingers are confident.

What the other players have shared is valuable. Whatever your routine, the technical studies will give you a foundation that supports everything else you do at the keyboard.

Jeff Clef: Forgive me for neglecting to consider that some are neophytes and need specific advice on getting started. Dr. Cooke gives a one octave introduction which should be, in my opinion, easy to do IF one takes it first hands separately and watches the hand, prepares the thumb at those places it turns under or the hand comes over it. After some preliminary work on that and getting the physical control to play one octave evenly and with correct fingers say with the C scale, then the same can be done with G, D, A, etc., until all of the keys for the major scale has been accomplished. Coordinating the hands should be done, too, at a pace that keeps the hands together even if 'tediously slow' as one teacher put it.

I think you will admit that after learning a few of the keys, subsequent ones can be learned faster and with less trouble because the principles of playing scales is more evident. After the major scale for one octave in all the keys is done then the three forms of the minor scale can be tackled--probably harmonic first, natural second, and melodic last.

I now realize that I was first thinking of the four octave scale and anyone reading it might try that first. However, a gradual building from one octave, then two, then three, and then four is a sensible and progressive way to continue.

My apologies for overlooking that. It is covered in the book however.

I agreed with what you said, Varcon--- and your gentlemanly manner. Nothing at all to apologize for, that I can see.

I lived in Atlanta for years, but I can't think where Mt. Vernon is. I have an atlas, but the music books have displaced it...

Jeff Clef: Mount Vernon is a small town about 165 miles south of Atlanta and about 90 miles west of Savannah. It's about 10-12 miles west of Vidalia--the ONION CITY! Not a music topic but at least you might have an idea where it is now.

Jeff Clef: Mount Vernon is a small town about 165 miles south of Atlanta and about 90 miles west of Savannah. It's about 10-12 miles west of Vidalia--the ONION CITY! Not a music topic but at least you might have an idea where it is now.

Onions always cause me to repeat.

The Dohnanyi exercises should probably get mentioned somewhere in this thread, and this is as good a place as any. He was interested in condensing a lot of traditional piano exercise into the most efficient and compressed form he could come up with.

His most basic scale exercise will get you through all the major and harmonic minor scales in a jiffy. The premise is that you play seven notes to a beat over a two octave range, and move up a half-step after each minor major pair. He throws in one beat with eight notes in the major scales, to make the scheme work. So, if you do this exercise even at a fairly modest pace with the metronome set at 60, if my quick calculation is correct, you'll get through all the scales in just over a minute and a half !! I like it. It's a great way to keep the scales under your fingers once you know them. It's also totally easy to extend it over more octaves, should that be desired. I still doing more concentrated work on the scales that are in whatever key it is that I'm working on for the month (this month it's Db/C#), so I get get a nice balance of getting through them all but still doing more focused work too.

I tried this method this morning. It was a nice change of pace. I mean that literally, too. I had to play very slow to think about what I was doing. Does this method help with playing scales and arpeggios faster? It seems like playing in these different patterns makes your fingers know the keys more thoroughly, which might eventually help with the speed.

Are you refering to exercise No 19? If so, for those who don't have the score, one would have to see the exercise to fully understand how to execute it, given the modulations that occur at every measure. Like any "good" exercise, this one can hardly be played without really concentrating on what is required. It can't very well be done, at least not initially, on "auto-pilot," and that's just one of its benefits.

Regards,

It's No. 18 (No. 19 is the one in sixths). I am trying to renotate it Finale so I can post it here. Maybe in a day or two...

Yes, of course, it's no. 18.

No. 19 is not only in sixths but the minor scales are melodic melodic minor and since there is (obviously) no key signature to this exercise, it's sometimes difficult to remember the accidentals on the descending part of the scale, particularly since the descending melodic is different from the ascending. Talk about a mental exercise!

Since it's so much easier to recognize a scale with a key signature, I've resorted to writing in over each measure which key is represented, and while the pattern becomes obvious after a while, it's not yet intuitive for me.

Regards,

Yes, I just started work on no. 18 a couple of weeks ago, but what you say is true even in that relatively straightforward one. It was surprising how tricky it turned out to be to learn how to simply go through all the keys using that pattern. I'm both looking forward to (and dreading) starting no. 19, and then the rest.

I thought this might be useful for some of you here who may not have seen it before, and who want to do some work on scales but don't have a lot of time to spend on it. It's a highly compressed scale exercise from Dohnanyi that will get you through all the major, harmonic minor, and chromatic scales about as efficiently as is possible. Here is a picture of the first page so you can get an idea how it works. If you are interested, you can download a pdf of the whole exercise.

That's very helpful, wr, to those who may not have grasped exactly what we were talking about.

Your edition is different from mine (Editio Musica Budapest) which gives only one stave, with fingerings for the right hand above the notes and fingerings for the left hand below the notes.

Regards,

Yes, it is a brand new edition from wr editions (aka my computer). I found the one line for two hands in the original a little bothersome, because my eye/brain kept misreading the fingerings, so I made this fully notated version. I should have taken the time to figure out how to squeeze more lines on a page, though.