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Just my two cents - the fingering encountered in repertoire is probably rarely the same fingering as used in the key scale. This is often used as an argument not to do scales, however by being proficient in all scales I feel it is much more likely your fingers will adapt to the piece quicker.

It has more to do with the principles of good fingering - although you will encounter actual scales in pieces from Baroque and Classical eras especially (but others too).

Not only that, but it's also good for training yourself to pay attention to fingering. I know some students who use a different fingering each time they play something. What happens? They have mistakes all over the place and inconsistent playing from one time to the next because muscle memory is getting messed up with each switch. So scales help with learning how to use the same fingers each time.

Lastly, there is skill involved in having to pay attention to fingering in both hands simultaneously. You encounter this in scales and that is something you will encounter in most repertoire. By doing scales you are opening your mind to this skill so that you don't waste time working on this in each piece you play (or if this is a new skill, it will be less of an issue).

Well of course there are lots of instances where you might not play an eb in the melody with a finger used in the scales, when playing it at the top of a right hand chord, at the end a phrase, positioning yourself to play another chord or start a new phrase or go out outside the key, and here you would just use common sense.

I don't know about classical repertoire (with a few exceptions, I haven't played it since I was a child -- when I first learned scales btw), but I don't think the OP is interested in playing it primarily. Playing popular music and jazz by ear or improvising involves runs and whole and half tone phrasing and modulation. You either know good fingering or you run out of fingers and/or bump into the black keys.

But try even just reading the one line melodies in a fake book while playing chords in the left hand. Even if you have no trouble reading the chord notation, without knowing scale fingering (and there are a lot more scales to know in jazz than in classical), you may eventually memorize fingering to play the song with basic harmony, but I doubt you'll ever be able to use these books as intended to play many songs on the fly with any kind of fluency, even using only shell chords.

Did you need to really practice and know a C major scale well, in order to play a piece written in C? No.

Same applies to all other keys. Follow the score if you read, or follow the lead sheet and improvise if you read chords, or learn it all by ear and let your ear guide you.

Varied repertoire over time, will provide plenty of exercise for developing technique. Proper scale fingering technique has never helped me here. It may have, but I've managed just fine for 40 or so years without it.

Contrary to what was suggested earlier, I actually prefer to learn to run Marathons, by running Marathons. I'm not saying it is the right way. Just that it has always been this way, for me.

I think it is good to know your scales. I do not think it is necessary to practice them. Unless you like to and want to.

I don't have 40 years to learn fingering, and my legs definitely won't hold out running that many marathons[lol!], but I don't like practicing scales either. Like the OP, if I have to play them, I'd rather do it to music. I think most people would, and this is why Jamie Abersold has made a fortune cataloging the various scales that go with certain chord sequences and providing rhythm and accompaniment cds to play them.

But sometimes, in Emily for instance, you'll find these sequences and the melody will be diatonic, others, it will be chromatic, or diminished, or whole tone, or Melodic minor, or something else. Even if you don't use his tapes and work out the song on your own, it is good to reference the scales to know which ones you can play and learn fingering for them that is relatively consistent to economize brain space. So, I agree with you, I don't like practicing scales but its good to know them, especially if you need to save time.

It has suddenly occured to me that with Sudnow, the place the OP got his idea for learning the keys, the style is mostly just chords and melody. Most of the Sudnow students I've heard who stick with this method are playing lush harmonies with both hands and melody only, so scale fingering wouldn't be important.

Like I said, scales are helpful in many ways. They are not the only way, but they are a very efficient way. Of course, if you do not play classical music or jazz, then scales themselves are less often used in other genres. If you play these or plan to, however, best get on them and quit whining about it . It takes all of 5 minutes a day.

Who is whining? I'd rather make a coffee.

Do both! While you wait for the coffee to brew, run a scale

Obviously, you've never played Haydn. Or Mozart. Or Beethoven. Or.....

When I read the biography of some masters and how meticulously they practiced their scales, I knew that I can't ignore that. Aside from the issues of fingering and navigating through your scales, practicing scales is a convenient way to build technique through listening for evenness, building speed, practicing any manner of accents, etc. The nice thing about the scales is that it gives you enough variety that you will likely encounter it.

Just the mere shape of the hand over a scale guides you even if you don't play the same exact notes.

Now at this point in my learning, I don't play scales all the time and I don't play all of them. Just a couple of scales perhaps. But I spent a lot of time on scales. Hours a day even, during the first year.

I find it extremely important to do myself. And interesting that when I look at jazz camps, they require that you know all your scales and have the ability to play it at a tempo that defines your level. Now if that's not a hint, I don't know what else is.

I know that in the Russian school, scales are practiced in excruciating detail and very fast tempos. I didn't see any instruction that offered an alternate.

As I said earlier, and I repeat, there are no short cuts.

I want to note too that blindly playing scales is a waste of time. There has to be a purpose. Evenness, tone, legato, speed, etc. I read that the masters played it very very slowly.

jazzwee
Yes I agree. I would add that also scales are the foundation of music theory. The playing of scales is about much more than the mechanics of playing/fingering. Of course it's about that too. But if you play scales attentively, and you understand their structure then you can understand what you're doing when you're playing other things. Yes, it's possible to just play repertoire, but if you do that you're missing something huge imo.

Scales are an underlying principle in music. As one simple example, chords are built off of scales. If you're playing a piece in C major and you're playing a G7 chord, that's not a random choice. The chord built off of the fifth of a major scale is one of the primary chords of that key. Understanding that helps you recognize and predict the chords in the song, it helps you with sight reading, it helps you with transposition, and it helps you with arranging/improvising etc... I'm not surprised at all that jazz camps want you to understand and know your scales. Because when it comes to understanding what's going on in music, scales are the keys to the kingdom.

and yes, it's possible to understand the structures i'm talking about (whole steps and half steps) without actually playing the scales, but I think you're really short changing yourself if you go that route. Understanding something in the abstract as an idea is very different from viscerally understanding it from practicing it. The practice of those scales can connect you to those ideas and make them much more meaningful for you.

oh well, opinions are like noses, everybody's got one.

Absolutely agree Fizikisto. Since I'm a jazz guy and the OP isn't, I didn't feel I needed to delve too deep in this discussion. But when I first started, I understood why it was important to dedicate hours a day on scales.

There are two parts of the argument here. One is "knowing" the scales, and other is "practicing" it regularly. Some might say that knowing the scale is enough for theory. But in my personal experience, when I am asked to play a new tune and I only have seconds to assimilate the form and the chords and then I have to do a solo, some of this comes automatically now because my hands know where to go even with my eyes closed.

This comes from scale practice. So the theory gets applied to practice. You can feel the intervals under your fingers. As I said before, hand shape becomes automatic. There's no time for hesitation.

In my case, when comping in jazz, I have to even think about this two handed. I need to be able to identify a b9 or a #11 without pause. If you practiced your scales (and put thought into what you are doing), then it becomes possible to do this.

I have a student whose knowledge of scales is basic. Yes he can identify the intervals, but it's too slow. Taking one second to find a specific interval in the scale shows he didn't practice his scales (this is a guitar player btw). So now teaching him will be slowed down because it will take a long time before it becomes automatic.

So since you brought it up, it becomes important in my mind, to be able to not just play the scale but identify and go directly to any interval in the scale either from sight reading or improvisory choice. This is part of the practice IMHO.

This is not going to be achieved by playing some specific tune that could be hit or miss on a scale. Besides many tones change scales constantly (most of the music I play) and the relationship between scalar tones and the rest of the non-scalar tones have to be visualized at all times.

Thus I think playing scales WELL is foundational on all aspects of playing.

I always say that theory is something you do, not something you just read about and understand intellectually. I think "theory" is a terrible name for it.

Jazzwee
Excellent post! +1

Morodiene
Well said! I may have to stea (del) (del) (del) (del) borrow that!

[quote=bennevis]
Obviously, you've never played Haydn. Or Mozart. Or Beethoven. Or..... [/quote]

Haydn, no. Mozart, no. Beethoven (working of 5th symphony by Listz and recently recorded another. I haven't come across a scale yet), Lots of Bach, Chopin & others. The closest need for anything resembling a scale has been Chopin.

As for jazz. My Dad made a living all his life as a jazz man. I never heard him play a scale. But I know it was part of his childhood training. He rejected them too, so I come upon it honestly.

I am not opposed to others playing scales. But, for myself as an adult beginner, I am not bucking to be a master. I don't think most adult beginners are. If you think scales help, use them. They haven't helped me and I am not about to start practicing them now. I've yet to come across anything I could not handle as a result. Maybe I will, but haven't yet.

[quote=Greener] Beethoven (working of 5th symphony by Listz and recently recorded another. I haven't come across a scale yet), Lots of Bach, Chopin & others. The closest need for anything resembling a scale has been Chopin. [/quote] The theme of the finale of Beethoven's 5th is based on the C major scale. [i]Including[/i] Liszt' transcription.

[quote=bennevis]The theme of the finale of Beethoven's 5th is based on the C major scale. [i]Including[/i] Liszt' transcription. [/quote]

Thank goodness I actually have a pretty good handle on a C major scale. That will be the least of my concern though. Getting to that point, has and is far more challenging.

I think I'll be fine.

Greener I don't think anyone said that you can't learn to be an excellent piano player without scale work. However, I think an argument could be made that had you spent some time doing scales you might be an even better pianist than you are, or maybe you would have discovered that they provided you with some real tangible benefit. Maybe those benefits aren't worth that extra work to you. Or maybe if you had been forced to do scale work when you were learning you would found the piano such a drudgery that you would have quit entirely. It's entirely fair for you to say, "I don't need scales to do what I want to do with the piano." What I object to (and I don't think you said anything like this, I'm just speaking in general) is those who say "Don't do scales they are a waste of time." Because a lot of learners who would benefit greatly from the practice of scales read stuff like that online and use it as an excuse not to practice them. And a lot of those people have no idea why scales practice is important/useful. I see similar attitudes in the martial arts about practicing kata. A lot of people eschew kata work as a waste of time. When pressed, I've never once had a martial artist who rejected the value of the practice of kata be able to really explain to me what they are for (except in the most basic terms). I think it is often (not always, but often) true of people who say "scales aren't useful" -- they don't understand what the practice of scales is for, except at the most superficial level. Of course, there are very accomplished pianists who have never spent any real time practicing scales. They might say they're that good because they didn't waste time playing scales. I suspect that they are that good in spite of their lack of scale practice, not because of it. But of course, I'm biased, I love the practice of scales, and I find them very useful for what I want to do when I sit down and play. You've found a different path that works for you, and at the end of the day that's all that really matters. :) Warm Regards

[quote=fizikisto]Greener
I don't think anyone said that you can't learn to be an excellent piano player without scale work. However, I think an argument could be made that had you spent some time doing scales you might be an even better pianist than you are, or maybe you would have discovered that they provided you with some real tangible benefit. Maybe those benefits aren't worth that extra work to you. Or maybe if you had been forced to do scale work when you were learning you would found the piano such a drudgery that you would have quit entirely. It's entirely fair for you to say, "I don't need scales to do what I want to do with the piano."

What I object to (and I don't think you said anything like this, I'm just speaking in general) is those who say "Don't do scales they are a waste of time." Because a lot of learners who would benefit greatly from the practice of scales read stuff like that online and use it as an excuse not to practice them. And a lot of those people have no idea why scales practice is important/useful.

I see similar attitudes in the martial arts about practicing kata. A lot of people eschew kata work as a waste of time. When pressed, I've never once had a martial artist who rejected the value of the practice of kata be able to really explain to me what they are for (except in the most basic terms). I think it is often (not always, but often) true of people who say "scales aren't useful" -- they don't understand what the practice of scales is for, except at the most superficial level.

Of course, there are very accomplished pianists who have never spent any real time practicing scales. They might say they're that good because they didn't waste time playing scales. I suspect that they are that good in spite of their lack of scale practice, not because of it.

But of course, I'm biased, I love the practice of scales, and I find them very useful for what I want to do when I sit down and play. You've found a different path that works for you, and at the end of the day that's all that really matters. :)
[/quote]

Nicely put. I agree. I simply offer my own, and different perspective. People of course will make their own choice.