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Forcing a child (especially a young one) to play hours of scales daily is very often a sure way to lose him or her as a student.

Jonathan adds to the chat with ...

“I cannot name one major pianist in history
who did not master scales, arpeggios, etc. at an early age”

Chopin used to play Bach.

Regards btb

My 9 year old daughter has been doing piano about five years now. She’s done well... I arranged to sign her up for lessons this summer with a well know jazz pianist/teacher. The jazz teacher requested that she comes to first lesson knowing all the major scales.

Her "regular teacher" doesn't know anything about jazz. Her answer may make some sense for a classical student (not really, though, as referring back to the key signature to know what sharps and flats to play isn't much of a way to read music - even a classical player needs to know "I'm in A flat" - and exactly what A flat looks like.

The jazz player, however, needs an absolutely thorough knowledge of scales - not just the Majors, ultimately, but the modes - Dorian, Mixolydian, etc., as well. If you haven't had enough replies yet, post this in Pianist Corner - Non Classical. They'll let you know.

Very interesting thread! I noticed that nobody sided with the teacher of the original poster's daughter. So I am the first!

I totally agree with this teacher on scales. Recently I discussed this topic with my older friend, very distinguished music educator and piano clinician who previously taught at the Royal Conservatory of Music and currently teaches at the University of Toronto.

She agreed that there are much better things to do then practicing scales. Instead of scales it would be much more beneficial to assign the students lots of studies and technically challenging pieces. Instead of spending hours of mechanical exercises her students use that valuable practice time for the activities that develop their creativity and musicianship while improving their piano technique and acquiring new repertoire at the same time.

The major problem with practicing lots of scales is that it goes contrary to the fundamental goal of piano performance which is the revealing of the emotional content of the musical composition. In my opinion, no matter what kind of music your student is studying it should always have deep core emotional content. One does not need to play soulless scales for hours every day. On the contrary, playing lots of dry and boring exercises develops a boring and mechanical performing style.

When I was a music college student I was taught to listen my own playing very intensely. The physical accommodations were supposed to arrive from within as a result of the desire to re-create on the piano the sound you create at first in your mind. I believe it is the right approach. Also helpful were exercises my teacher and later myself were creating out of difficult places of my current pieces.

All the benefits of playing scales listed in the previous posts could be achieved while studying musically and emotionally engaging repertoire. It is very rare case when a child likes playing scales. Most of them hate scales.

Forcing a child (especially a young one) to play hours of scales daily is very often a sure way to lose him or her as a student.



I cannot claim that I do not teach scales. Unfortunately, (because of the RCM curriculum) I have no choice but get my students to prepare tons and tons of scales for the practical examinations. RCM has totally overwhelming scale and arpeggio requirements which are in my view completely useless. All these scales separated by third, sixth, tenth and so on student will probably never encounter in his/her real piano repertoire. What a waste of time!

If one wants to master double notes he/she should study Thirds by Chopin or Feux Follets by Liszt. I never encountered someone who got proficient with double notes by studying double note scales...


Unfortunately, I am not a major piano teacher (though I managed to win an international piano competition myself and my students are doing quite well). So I guess I am falling into the category of 'so-called' teachers.

But with the example of the major pianist - it's easy! Russian born (with German roots) pianist Sviatoslav Richter could be a good enough example of a renowned pianist who did not studied scales. He talks on this subject in the Monsaingeon's biographical film 'Richter: The Enigma'. Not playing scales did not prevent him from achieving amazing virtuosity. Instead of wasting hours on mechanical exercises he spent the valuable time on developing his vast repertoire.

Or may be Richter also should be promptly dismissed as a 'so-called' pianist??

I have a feeling there is some misunderstanding about what the teacher has asked you to do. I think that a teacher telling a parent to teach their child all the major scales, means that you teach the child the key signatures so that the child can write the scales.

"Knowing the scales" is quite different from playing the scales fluently, and is more suitable to what a parent wanting to jump start lessons could manage.

Good news, since I originally posted this, she has learned all 12 major scales with standard fingering (in C, she can do hands together and the rest of the keys she is doing just RH, one octave) I did have to bride her a bit... I told her that when she learned her major scales, could play them in tempo and with correct fingering, she'd get a trip to the water park. Guess where I'm going this weekend?

Your daughter is to be congratulated for some major progress in short order. However, so you are aware of the varying standards, in my studio, this would not be considered acceptable, for a 5th year student. Such a student would be doing 3 octaves, in triplets, hands together and separately, at a metronome setting of 72 per beat (every 3 notes in this case). This, incidentally, is not an unusually high standard.

I noticed that Jonathan Baker offered an advice to promptly dismiss colleagues who have a different teaching method. I also noticed that nobody objected. Does it mean everybody here agree with Jonathan?

Your daughter is to be congratulated for some major progress in short order. However, so you are aware of the varying standards, in my studio, this would not be considered acceptable, for a 5th year student. Such a student would be doing 3 octaves, in triplets, hands together and separately, at a metronome setting of 72 per beat (every 3 notes in this case). This, incidentally, is not an unusually high standard.