Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum I hate scales!

Please do. I'd love to know more about the mathematics, science, and physics of music theory and playing the piano, and how you use them when you're teaching

Cathy

It's not what you remember from reading, it's what you have learned and acquired by diligent and thorough work and experience with the learning systems of music comprehension.

I would not have known a thing about it from my music lessons from age 9-15. I had a one year theory class in high school taught from a band instrument perspective. It was not until I studied pedagogy as an adult piano teacher that I learned what I now know about teaching piano. It was a many years process. The best way of accumulating knowledge is to start at the most simple place and increasingly, one step at a time, add to your basic knowledge.

I would not expect anyone to digest this chunk of information at one time, as I said, it's growth and understanding over time and effort. Curiosity helps too. Music is a highly evolved structured series of process. It can be reduced to simple levels of learning to play without having much information compared to the dearth of information that is available. I am not an academic scholar but I am an experienced teacher of 38 years with students from beginning to advanced, some studying 8 years or more with me. With this kind of commitment on their part, the technique and the theory come into learning and practice and I teach to the musician and the music combined for musical comprehension and analysis.

Dedication to the art form will get you there, or you may be happy with less of the background, and more of playing your favorites.

The problem comes when people learn at little and make misapplications about music: Stephen Hawking made a comment about knowledge in general, which also applies to music - "The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge."

Again, I hope the partakers of such that I've focused on becomes more clear, and to those who are having nothing of it, please continue onward without me.

please add me to your buddy list if you find some of my postings helpful to you, or use private messages.

I'm talking about remembering it from my youth. I took a lot of this stuff in with my mother's milk, but it's been a while since I've sat down at a piano. I'm not sure how much will come back and where the gaps in my memory will be. But I began fairly young-ish (ten years old) and continued for a very long time to become a fairly advanced player. I'm just wondering what my hands will recall after more than fifteen years of inactivity.

Yeah, I only had piano lessons from, I think, 13 to 15 - a couple of years in my early teens, anyway - and I don't remember learning music theory (or math, science, or physics) from them, either (which is not to say my piano teacher didn't try to teach them! But I didn't learn them then). But if you're saying that one can learn the "science, mathematics, and physics", which is what I asked about, only thru "learning systems of music comprehension" (I'm not actually sure what you mean by that phrase) I'm not sure I can agree. Actually, I simply don't know what you've said here that is applicable to my question.



So, did you learn about the math, science, and physics of music, which is what I asked about, from your piano pedagogy studies, and if yes, what did you learn?



*I'm* not actually attempting to learn it all at one time. I already have an undergraduate degree in math, I've been playing piano pretty steadily for more than 20 years and on and off for more than that, and I do have some freshman level physics and music theory courses under my belt, along with the music theory that I've learned from fellow musicians and other sources as I actually play music, so I think that you don't have to fear overwhelming me or confusing me with the math, science, and physics that you've learned while teaching piano. So, please, feel free to post that knowledge. If I have questions, I'll ask.



I have a pretty high level of curiosity. I've learned a lot of things outside of formal studies, as well as beyond the formal class work when I'm in formal studies. So again, I think I'll be ok if you post your knowledge. I've got the curiosity part.



But a dearth information *is* "not much information." So when one compares not having much information with the dearth of information out there, why, one finds they might have all of the information which is available. Hm.



I haven't questioned how many years of teaching experience you have, or that you have learned, each year you have taught, more about teaching. I haven't asked whether or not most, or even all, of your students stay with you for a long time. What I want to know, since you mention it often, is: what science, math, and physics you know, how you use it in your teaching, and, if you don't directly use it in your teaching, how does the knowledge you have (which you have not been specific about) inform your teaching. At least so far your reply has not addressed that question.



Get me where? Playing *not* my favorites rather than playing my favorites? :insert scratching head icon here:



I didn't know we were talking about a problem. Which problem do you think we're talking about?



I couldn't agree more.



I'm not sure what you've focused on, but as far as I can tell it wasn't an answer to the question I asked

My apologies if, in fact, you weren't addressing my question. I just thought you intended to do that since my question was the last post in this thread before your last post. Perhaps I was mistaken.

Cathy

Hm, we may have had crossed wires here ... I saw "Re: J Cortese" in the header of her note, and thought she was replying to me.

<lolcat>THREADING WE NEEDZ IT</lolcat>

Akira,

No need to practice scales. Just familiarize yourself with them and know them. But, if you're going the classical route, it's part of the whole classical enchillda. No way around it really.

Perhaps that explains it

Cathy

Just FYI, I think this thread has renewed some interest in a little booklet I put together for some of my adult students a while back.

In case others may find it interesting:

http://www.box.net/shared/i87zfua2oc

Thanks for that -- I apparently do recall more than I thought. Sitting 2-3-4 and 2-3 on top of the two groups of black keys essentially defines the scale fingering when substantial numbers of black keys start showing up.

Not a bad idea.
Any links to sheet music for this kind of LH chord and RH scales play ?
I am too early in my development (page 81 of Alfred's 1) to know that many chords to improvise, so sheet music would help in LH chord to individual RH note association.

Thanks,
AC

Yes, J Cortese, it was to you that I was replying.

Yes, that is the way I do that.

But curiously, since you are replying to Kreisler, you didn't notice that he did not.

(nice job on those graphics, by the way, I'm in awe)

But anyway, if you sit 2-3-4 as you say, which would be 4-3-2 in the left hand, you will use a different fingering than he does on G, D, and A major. Specifically you will start G 3-2-1, D 2-1-4, and A 2-1-3. After that of course the pattern of 4-3-2-1-3-2-1 continues, just as in C major.

That's what I do. I think it's a tiny bit better. Not enough better to really matter, in the large scheme of things, given how little of the repertoire uses the scale fingerings; but it makes it easier for me to remember or recalculate as i work my way through the scales. And it makes a little bit more sense to me, because I start each scale on each degree, and the modes line up better this way.

In my experience, the standard fingering for such simple keys as G major and D major is an absolute prerequisite for the classical repetoire. A considerable amount of music was written with it in mind. Composers didn't just write notes randomly. They sculpted them to fit their techniques. Classical sonatas are frequently absolutely dependent upon regular fingerings. That is why I would never recommend learning variant fingering of standard white note scales, unless the standard 343 pattern is learned first. There's a good reason why this is the normal fingering- because, judging how most composers wrote their music, it was the most 'normal' fingering for them. Nobody should ever be limited by a single way of playing a particular scale, but if the regular pattern is not 2nd nature, you will find an awful lot of music where having learned an odd fingering causes a disadvantage.

I think that is probably wrong. I can't be sure, I don't know the repertoire as well as you, but it doesn't make common sense for two reasons.

One is the rarity of scale passages of octave length and greater in the repertoire, particularly in the left hand, particularly with no other notes in that hand so that a scale fingering would be used. Where you do see scalar fragments, the context more often leads to an alternate fingering. In fact, if standard scale fingering worked very often in music, beginners would not be in the constant state of fingering confusion they normally are in. This is unique to piano. On monotonic instruments, the fingering pattern learned for a given key normally works well for the repertoire in that key, outside of trill fingerings, intonation problems, etc.

So my first objection is to your claim of widespread scale use - I perceive far more examples of nonscale fingering patterns than scalar, at least in the beginner-intermediate levels.

But my second objection, or maybe more of a question, is to your assertion that THE standard fingering is the 5-4-3 that Kreisler posted, as opposed to the 3-2-1 or 2-1-4 or 2-1-3 that I posted for those left hand scales. (Clearly the biggest differences are in those 3 left hand major scales. Both fingerings follow the rules for avoiding thumbs on black keys, just in a different way.) I didn't invent them; they have long been known. I am not sure which fingering pattern the great composers had in mind. I know that somewhere down the road, probably based on Hanon's book, those 5-4-3 fingerings got codified as correct, but there has always been room for disagreement.

So I would challenge you as an expert in the repertoire. In the keys of G, D, and A, where the alternate left hand fingerings are the most common, show us repertoire examples where 5-4-3 is superior to the alternate choices cited. You are claiming, I think, that these choices are always or at least usually superior, and the alternates won't work. This just doesn't seem likely to me.

I'm guessing you didn't really mean to phrase it this way. The fact that there are 12 major scales is NOT because there are "7 white notes and 5 black notes" in every octave. Obviously the whiteness and blackness of the keys (not notes) is (a) completely arbitrary, and (b) limited to keyboard instruments, whereas the octave and the 12 major scales common to Western music is applicable to virtually all instruments.

Some fair points, certainly. But what happens in the countless instances where composers run a standard scale from tonic to tonic? Why contort yourself with unusual hand positions? Why not start with the beginning side of the hand and finish with the end of the hand? Similarly, why learn the complex coordination to get both hands working against each other?

If you learn a non-standard pattern, you can guarantee that you will need to use a standard pattern for works by Mozart and Beethoven- some of the time, at least. Sure there will also be variants, but it makes more sense to see these as variants- rather than be confused when you end up needing to play a simple G major scale with a simple 343 fingering.

There's nothing faintly confusing about the simplicity of 343 patterns (in which the tonic is ALWAYS anchored around thumbs- rather than on a different finger each time). However, I should find it very confusing to be told to start and finish on an odd number of fingers- before ending up needing to use something much more simple, when music demands it.

J Cortese cited the guiding principle here—the consistency of 4-3-2 and 3-2 for the black keys in the left hand and 2-3-4 and 2-3 in the right hand—as "defin[ing] the scale fingering when substantial numbers of black keys start showing up" in the key signature. Perhaps it wasn't meant to apply to G, D and A major, then?

Kreisler, if you're still following the discussion: I noticed in your booklet that the B-flat major scale begins on 4 for the right hand and ends on 2. Was that intentional?

Steven

Betty: Music is structured consistently according to organized, structured, patterned music theory and music is music regardless of the instrument being used. Different clefs are used for some instruments, for instance. Different instruments had different ranges, also.

Of great importance: The keyboard is the place where music theory was established - everything about the keyboard is an example of the many different things employed in the building of the instrument and in the "rules" (which are really mathematical and scientific in form using acoustics and physics, and spatial relationships. The early theorist were keyboard teachers and composers, most notably Bach and Rameau. The theories they wrote in the Baroque period are tried and true and remain the basic foundation of all that can be explained musically. Other instruments developed later and do use/borrow these theories and information for the teaching and playing of the specific instrument. (Saxophone "speak"; Clarinet "speak", Vioin "speak", Choral "speak", etc.)

Monica: The fact that there are 12 major scales is NOT because there are "7 white notes and 5 black notes" in every octave.

Betty: I didn't say "because" - your interpretaion is not a valid conclusion. I am saying in every octave there are 7 white notes and 5 black notes from which to choose the makings of a major scale. Start on any of the 12 notes to create a major scale. Our "model" is best encompassed in the Key of C as I had previously explained for visualization in making fingering choices that will fit the human hand best. Any of the 12 keys are available to us to work with as a designated "key". (Tonic center.)

Monica: Obviously the whiteness and blackness of the keys (not notes) is (a) completely arbitrary, and (b) limited to keyboard instruments, whereas the octave and the 12 major scales common to Western music is applicable to virtually all instruments. [/quote]

Betty: Obviously? Arbitrary? Limited? I would never use those words! The keyboard, the music staff, music theory are planned, designed, developed, have stood the test of time, are of genius proportions. Every thing there is essential.

Again, the keyboard is the root of everything that has been said about music.

Stephen Hawkin's quote says it all -
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.

I would add, that the misunderstanding of music theory by people who continue to misunderstand and to a point reject music theory, also feel that music theory is open to interpretation is a sad thing for me to witness. The opportunities to learn are often very evident in Piano World Forum, likewise the inept explanations of certain posters bog down and misdirect us to extremely inaccurate and misleading information.

To me music theory it is as solid as the law of gravity. I worked to understand it and make use of it in my piano playing. I'm not the academic expert as I've said, but I find myself defending music literacy too frequently here usually from the same posters. If a bottom line of piano study included the learning and using of music theory, we would not be having these "dissecting" Betty contests which have become some people's hobbies. Instead of helping to enlighten readers my postings then take on a new life as "fodder" for those self-employed, even enthusiastic posters who are busy dissecting me and my words. Unfortunate for all of us.

Correct. G, D, and A (and even E) are sort of the garden variety mostly-white-key fingerings to me. It's when you have to move your hand up that the 2-3-4 and 2-3 business starts acting like the home keys on a typewriter.

Great post and consistent with my own experience.