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Why do piano teachers teach scales/arpeggios/cadences that are way above the music a student is playing? For example, my son is learning F# Major this week. I can't imagine him running into music like this for a long, long time.

Is it because they are tested way before a student really needs them? Or is more like an extension of music theory? I feel that many people see learning them all as a milestone in piano playing.

My son I am told is one of the few creatures who actually enjoys scales so this is not a gripe...just a curiosity.

Playing an F# major scale is way easier than playing a piece in F# major - usually because the different fingering involved in playing pieces mostly on the black keys. One must be firmly rooted in good fingering choices before playing pieces like this or they will be fumbling and running out of fingers.

So your son learns good/traditional fingering within the scales and solidifies them, for the time when he's ready to play pieces in more sharps or flats.

+1.

All students must learn all 24 keys, sharps and flats, major and minor, as part of their studies, and the earlier the better,

1- so they'll be ready to tackle them when they come up in pieces,
2- as part of their theoretical study so they can understand their relationship on the circle of 5ths and how pieces are put together, and
3- how do you know he's not going to run across a piece in F-sharp major in the next year or two, one way or another?

Consider that scale playing is one of the most difficult technical skills at the piano, and requires the most refinement in order to do well. It is something your son will be studying on a semi-regular basis so long as he is playing the piano, just like any other serious student. I myself spent more than 15 years practicing scales 1 to 2 hours 5 days a week, in various ways and combinations, before I felt that I could do them well enough to play them consistently at an advanced level.

Lastly, F-sharp major looks like a nasty key on paper, but in fact the scale is one of the easiest to play physically and intellectually of all the major keys.

There are different schools of thought on teaching scales. I try not to associate scales--which is a physical skill--with theory and circle of fifths. There are scales that obviously belong together, and should be learned about the same time. I think I outlined that in a thread a few months back.

My opinion on practicing scales is that, once the skill is obtained and honed, the student can move on and not spend umpteen hours on the same skill over and over again.

F# Major belongs to the easiest group of scales that I tend to teach first (B Major and D-flat Major as well). This can be done by rote without any "reading" of notes on the staff. I've taught kids as young as 6 to do this, and if you try to teach 6-year-old kids the circle of fifth, well, you're asking for trouble.

I teach these scales first also.

I start off with:

V fingers (2 and 3) for both hands, two black keys.
Cat's Paws (2 3 and 4) for both hands, three black keys.

We get that sorted out, both hands, then add C and F. Then that same scale, modally.

Then same thing with Gb/F#, then same thing with B.

The next scale I teach is F, because it has the same logic, thumbs on F and C.

Finally, when those four scales are really solid, I teach the C scale, which is always way WAY harder.

But I use the first three - Db, Gb and B - to immediately introduce the idea that our "keys" are sets of notes.

What we call the key of Db is really only the key signature for Db major, Eb pentatonic, Bb natural minor, and so on. Or Gb Lydian, and so on. But I don't teach the names.

Pentatonic is the "Scarboro Fair" scale. Lydian is the Disney fantasy sound. Natural minor is simply mode 6. The idea is that you always have all five black notes, that those 5 black notes are pentatonic, and you add two white notes. And those white notes never change for that key set.

I teach all these things to very small children.

I'm not a teacher, and wandered into this sub-forum on a whim, but I've got to push back a bit on the notion that learning scales is a "physical" skill. Readers of sheet music must surely know the sharps or flats of the key in which they're playing - unless you're expecting them constantly to be looking back at the key signature of each line.

And jazz players must know their keys inside and out. Improvising to a fast-moving set of changes, there's no time to work out the circle of 5ths in your mind - you've just got to know your keys - major, minor, mixolydian, dorian, diminished - and on and on. The business of learning keys is so much more than a "physical" skill.

There, I'm done.

You're preaching to the choir. But your concern is misplaced because we are talking about different sets of circumstances: that of mental readiness of the young students' learning theory vs. scales.

Obviously, scales have to do with theory. But, in my experience working with young children, I found that trying to mix the two yields disastrous results.

And it's not wrong to stress the physical skill aspect of scales. That, alone, takes a long time to master.

I think you are misunderstanding what we are saying.

There are two sides to this coin. But what are you going to teach first?

Are you going to teach someone how to play a scale first, or the theory behind the scale?

I'm going to start with the physical. But then we are going to find these skills everywhere and talk about how and why they work.

Thank you all for your kind responses and I understand it a little better. Laguna-I will let my son know that some people practice scales 1 to 2 hours per day when he complains. I normally have him do 10 minutes of scale work per day.

Piano Adventures teaches pentascales more than a full scale for a while. M vs m is simply raising or lowering the 3rd degree. Then, when they get into chords, a V7 needs to know the leading tone, but by then, students understand half steps, and sharps and flats, and intervals, and a look into the circle of 5ths. And it just keeps on building and tumbling.
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I ask them to play any key, black or white, and figure out the steps for a major scale, using pointer finger to calculate from the tonic. I teach the phrase, "We Were Happy When We Were Home." Ok to make up own phrase! And they absolutely get the steps/pattern.
Pentascale is "We Were Happy When" and minor is "Who Hears Winter Wind?"
Natural, Melodic, harmonic minors come later. Can do cadences just fine in M or m with those pentascale phrases/patterns.
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As for scales, yes, they are an evil necessity, like counting, intervals, learning time sigs, etc...part of the grammar of the language of music. Fingerings and turns...frustrating fun.
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When you SEE how all this comes together, it is magic!
And when the student figures it out on their own under your tutelage, that smile is priceless!

My piano teacher just had me memorize/ ear trained/guess the sound of scales. That is why I TEACH my students. Less work, in the long run, and more fun!☺

My son's teacher uses Bastien's Scale Book WP249 - Scales, Chords & Arpeggios. He's learned 19 in all so far including first and second inversions.

He really doesn't mind them though. I've been told that he's pretty lucky because most students really struggle with scales and he doesn't (at least at the beginner level). It is interesting that people us the word frustrating to describe them. I know his teacher is watching his fingering on a few to make sure he doesn't forget and develop bad habits.

I find scales relatively comforting for him as it's something familiar each day. I suppose if he didn't do them he'd probably forget and then they would be frustrating. Perhaps they are frustrating for most because people don't practice and then they are hard which makes people not want to practice them.

I like working on scales.
Right now, it is a good way to stay present.

10 minutes to start is more than enough.