Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Technical work - how do you do your scales, arppeggios etc.?

Hi Arun,

Welcome to the Adult Beginners forum! It is great place. Congratulations on passing your grade four exam. If you plan to continue with exams, grade 5 requires scales and arpeggios in all keys, plus some contras and chromatics. They are also much more picky about the quality of the scales.

It depends were you are at in the mastery of scales which approach works best. In the last couple of months before the Grade 5 exam I ran all major and minors in chromatic or random order each day. Now I do two keys daily doing major, minor harmonic, and major melodic, as well as tonic arpeggios and dominant 7th arpeggios. That gets around the circle of fifths in a week, which seems to be enough to keep them in my fingers. I only run the contra scales that are required at grade 4-6 at this point. I think it is better to focus on one or two scales a day while one is still in the learning stage, so that the scale actually gets well ingrained without confusion. The most important thing for me, is to make sure to listen and assure absolute evenness. Don't push above the speed where this is consistent.

Good luck in your piano journey!

Welcome to the forum Arun.

The fact you are about to start regular technical work is I think all you need be concerned with. You may start with one of your options but may change over the course of time to brighten up your regime. There is no right or wrong way, but since you ask how others go about it, about four months ago I got serious about technical improvement. My day now starts will either all twelve minor or major scales in four octaves, some chromatic scale work and an arpeggio in various inversions. As I progress I add a little more to the regime but have yet to tackle contrary motion scales.

As to the question about Czerny 101 Exercises or Hanon's Virtuoso Pianist, you will have to try both and make up your own mind. There never seems to be a clear answer in anything piano related. Personally I can't make the room in my practice regime for such exercises. I seem to be getting along just fine for now with scales, arpeggios and repertoire.

The technical portion of piano is important, but I also fall into the trap of wanting to practice music a lot more than technical side of the study, which I am beginning to pay the price as well, so for level 6, I am also shifting my focus more on the technical side. I also do the hearing and sight-reading training first thing of the day instead of last (or in the past skipping it because I ran out of time.)

I also do as SwissMS suggests - but focus on 1 key signature because of time constraint. I used to play major and related minor but nowadays usually only one or the other. I focus on the same key until I mastered this key before moving to a new key. This may mean a week or a month, but I need to master all elements before moving on. A lot of it are re-runs of level 5. I already know how to play Ab major arpeggio for level 5, for instance, but not its dominant 7th chords.

So everyday I do the following for 1 or 2 keys (required for level 6):

- parallel scales
- staccato scales
- formula pattern scales
- chromatic starting at key sig
- triads broken root and inversions
- triads solid root and inversions
- tonic 4-note chords root and inversions broken
- dominant 7th chords root and inversions broken
- dominant 7th chords root and inversions solid
- 7th diminished 7th chord root and inversions broken
- 7th diminished 7th chord root and inversions solid
- tonic arpeggios, root and 1st inversion
- dominant 7th arpeggio root
- diminished 7th arpeggio root

Eventually, I need to master G, E, F, Ab, Db major and G, E, F, G#, C# minor for the level 6 exam.

Technical mastery is important; without which, learning the repertoire takes far too long and I would never finish even half the pieces in a given level at a reasonable time. I think this is not obvious in the beginning when the music was easy and the adult minds could cope with a lot of initial complexity, but at a certain point, there is a huge gain in seeing something in a repertoire passage, recognizing it, and just playing it. You not only master a piece more quickly but play more polished too.

Also if you haven't done so, also study for the written theory exams. They make learning the reading, hearing, technical exercises, etudes and repertoire all much easier as well.

I honestly do not have time for Hanon. I use some of the select exercises to strengthen my 4 and 5th finger and that's it. Same for Czerny etudes, which are all excellent, but I have no time to learn all of them, so I only learn the official exam etudes, and for each level there's always one or more Czerny in the Celebration Series Etude books; I always learn them. Welcome to the forum!

Just some thoughts...

Put a certain amount of time aside (bearing in mind you've not been regular in your technical work thus far) and do one key for scales, chromatics, arpeggios and broken chords (the ABRSM doesn't test block chords but it's worth throwing them in). Do what you can in the time and move on. Keep the same keys each day until you've got everything to the required level (it will benefit all the keys).

You can spend some time periodically going over all the keys or spread them over a few days but doing twelve majors and twenty-four minors every day is unlikely to confer much benefit. Doing that much in one day must perforce reduce the amount of concentration and effort in the later keys compared to the earlier ones. This will create tedium - not what you want for daily scale practise.

Spend one day making sure the notes are even in time and tone for crotchets and quavers (one or two octaves each), triplets (three octaves) and semiquavers (four octaves). The next day do them legato, non-legato, soft and sharp staccato, the next day in thirds, sixths and tenths, the next day in contrary motion or the Russian scale pattern, et cetera. Repeat the day if it's not worthy of a pass. Find out what's not good enough and improve it before moving on.

The less time you spend on these each day, the more likely you are to do them again the next day. It's doing them every day, not bulk practise sporadically, that improves these blessed things. Little and often with an attentive mind in sharp focus on a specific outcome is the key to progress.

As far as Hanon and Czerny are concerned, which one do you love the most? Which one do you sing to yourself every day? Which one inspires you most to get to the piano with enthusiastic ardour? Pick that one. If it's neither don't touch 'em.

Instead I would play a wide variety of repertoire. For every piece at your current level learn three or four easier pieces. More pieces means more technique and easier pieces means more time spent reading than building technique or memorising. More reading means better reading, better reading means better sight-reading.

Technique is about making music from the notes in front of you. Learn particular skills when there's a musical requirement for them in your pieces rather than saving them up to drag out like clichés in your music.

I try to don't spend more than 30 minutes daily on general technique.
I do have a regime of exercises from my teacher about scales and thrills, speed exercises based on hanon, a set of isidor phillips and tausig to follow... BUT, I don't do everything every day to avoid injuries and overtraining.. I never stop on a single key for more than few days.
The basics are important to improve the shape of the hand, or speed in particular conditions, or evenness in standard passagework... but certain technical problems are solved only working on pieces.

For example, right now I'm pretty much done with the first and second movement of Mozart K330.
there are only 2 though spot to be solved because I'm using a weird fingering that I want to learn to use effectively.
in the first movement at the beginning of the development there is one bar with a G major scale starting on G and ending on B... instead of using the standard fingering (2 thumb passage) I'm trying to use 1(on G)-2-3-4-5(onD)-1(on E)-2-3-4-5(on B) and coming down 2-3, 2-3, 1-(3-2).... this is something that won't be found in any standard technique book.... In the second movement there is a similar issue that involve a weird passage in the left hand and at the same time in the right hand to use the pedal only for one single legato and keep doing a finger legato for the rest of the passage... it's a compromise but is also effective... too bad is another technique never found in a book and is quite kicking my b-side....

This meaning... basic technique is good when is necessary and useful to solve musical issues.
scales are good when practiced in order to remove the weight of the thumb and be able to accent as required... every 2,3,4,5,6,7,8 or whatever note... and not.. C,d,e,F,g,a,b,C,d,e,F,g... but C,d,e,f,G,a,b,c,D,....
and the only way to do it is to practice scales, isolate the passage of the thumb, do impulse and accent drills... quite less to learn keys and progressions of accidentals... all the other opportunities are learnt on pieces. there is important to restrain from the temptation of playing through every time but isolate the hard spots and practice them until solved.

Thank you very much for sharing your perspective Swiss MS. At what stage of exams are you? Also, do you/did you always practice with a metronome?

Hi earlofmar,

Thanks for your reply. How long have you been learning the piano, and how long does the technical work you've mentioned below take you each day?

Also, how much time do you average each day for practice (technical+pieces)?

thanks
Arun

Thank you 8 octaves...it sounds like there's a ton of technical work to do to get to Grade 6. I clearly have my task cut out!!
Good luck for your exams

Hi Richard,

Thanks for sharing your perspective. I see a couple of very interesting thoughts such as:

1)Spending time to get notes right within a scale instead of doing all majors for instance on a particular day

2)Working on easier pieces than my grade

3)Doing Czerny/Hanon only if they sound like something I would enjoy playing.

Sound advice on all three counts. Thanks a lot.

Regards,
Arun

I took the ABRSM grade 5 in November, and passed with a merit. I plan to focus on repertoire for a while, and I will sit the Grade 6 November 15. I look at the exams as milestones, but I continue to do other repertoire (about 20 pieces/year) as well.

In regard to your question about the metronome, I actually use it a lot. For scales I will do as Richard suggested above; 1 note per beat, then two notes per beat, then three, then four. I also use the metronome in slow practice to insure rhythms are correct and to maintain an even tempo. I also use it so slowly bring a piece up to tempo.