I just sat down and played through a few scales at a decent clip, and I can see how you describe it as the fingers leading the hand. When you look at it without thinking about where the energy is it definitely looks like your fingers are leading. But the wizard behind the show is definitely the arm. I suppose I approached it from the player's POV rather than the watcher's POV.

All in all I think we're talking about the same thing. I will say that before I knew how to do it, I watched a pianist for many months before I finally figured out what it was she was doing. Gaining this skill is, I think, relatively difficult, but once it's attained it feels so easy.

Back from shopping and discover that there is quite a bit of discussion while I was out.

Actually, all the best/advanced teachers I know, like Leon Fleischer, for example, or Veda Kaplinsky, use the concept of wrist leading. So I don't think that's my students' problem.

None-the-less, I find the discussion interesting.

John,

Sorry if my question is off topic but I am curious why you did not mention arpeggios when discussing scales and velocity?

fathertopianist

All of the points I have talked about apply to arpeggios as well as scales. They are the same thing from a physiological perspective. The only difference is that the notes are further apart.

I didn't mention arpeggios for two reasons - first, because I figured if I could find a way to help my students increase their velocity, it would apply to those as well, and secondly, right now, at the level they're at, I'd be happy if I could just get their scales faster.

I'm beginning to think it's just time and practice more than anything else.

Sometimes my students and I use creative fingering approaches to scales, when velocity is important. For example, for a 2-octave D Major scale passage (this only works when there is no harmony or counter-melody), I would play the first 5 notes (DEF#GA) with my L.H. (54321), then the next 5 with my R.H. 12345 (BC#DEF#), then the last 5 with my L.H. (GABC#D). Voila--a super-fast, even scale with no tucking or crossing issues!

interesting, lalakeys.
By far the fasted fingering for a C major scale is 12345123451234512345.
It doesn't work well for longer scales, but for 2 octaves it can produce glissando-speeds with incredible evenness!

Actually, Mr. Kitty, I think the fastest fingering for a C Major scale would be a glissando.

I used D Major as my example because it includes black keys, which would make a glissando impossible (or at least very awkward/painful)!

Mr. Kitty, thanks for the detailed description of your scale technique.

To check whether I understand you about the knuckle bridge staying in a straight line with your elbow - if you are playing a RH descending scale starting at C two octaves above middle C, you start out with the bridge perpendicular to the length of the keys? And as you descend, and the forearm is no longer parallel to the key length, the angle of the knuckle bridge to the key length shrinks from a right angle to about 45 degrees when you get to an 8ve below middle C?

The opposite of the above would be to keep the knuckle bridge and key at a right angle, by bending the wrist to the right with respect to the forearm (which it sounds like you are NOT doing.)

Sorry about all the geometry, but that's the clearest way I could think of to phrase the question.