Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum too picky=total frustration

i have a teacher who is attempting to teach me scales done legato. if i lift my thumb from the keyboard and it is not instantly tucked under or moving towards it's next position i get a verbal hand slap. constant criticism is not helping me progress......in fact practice is dreaded because the exactness required by the teacher seems impossible to achieve.

i guess i could drop this person, except there are few options since i live in the middle of nowhere. there is a friend who tries to give me some theory over the phone, but obviously there are limitations.

should i just go it alone even though i am not a great self-starter?

and what is all this scale business anyway? they don't make a tune.

Try slowing down first. And I mean, REALLY slowing down. Set your metronome (and please be using one in the first place!) to the slowest speed.

Then, take time just to get the feel of the 'exactness.' Play just the first four notes for the cross-under, if you need to, to get that down. Then continue until the next cross-under (if you're doing more than one octave). Once you can do it at the slowest speed, gradually speed it up. Do it a number of times a day too. Once a day or whatever is not enough to get your scales done.

And scales help in many aspects of piano-playing (or any instrument, actually). You work on the key, most importantly, to find out which notes and chords are a part of the music and how they work together. But you also work on musicality, rhythm, evenness, finger accuracy... yep, lots of importance in those scales.

Hope that helps!

thank you for your comment.

i'll take your word for it that scales are important. i guess you have to have progressed significantly before their value becomes apparent.