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You did not understand what I was saying. Taking that one introductory sentence in isolation won't give it to you. Let my try again.

It starts off describing what you were comparing. On one hand you wrote about exploratory harmony. On the other hand you wrote about scales, but the teaching of scales you compared with it was specifically "scales for building technique". I was saying that teachers will teach in many different ways. Therefore not all teachers will teach "scales for building technique" so if you are countering this, you may not be countering what they are doing.

It would be easiest if you read the entire post and understand the whole idea.

I read Jonathan's posts as well as your own. The teaching he described was multifaceted. I've experienced this style. It is very possible that the way scales were featured were exploratory as well - i.e. not just a thing for building technique in the way it is sometimes done. I imagine other teachers here might also have multidimensional ways of weaving the various elements of music together.


It's hard to respond to this since you didn't understand what I was saying and I had to clarify it now. Hypothetically - ok, mixing together "scales for technique building" and "exploratory harmony (chords)" don't mix. But scales and chords in an exploratory manner would mix, since they interrelate. One can explore them back and forth.

Right! Real cowboy does not need a saddle!

Must ask verbose keystring a simple question
(cutting out all the multi-facetted claptrap) ...
Can you freely play the piano with dexterity,
or is all this hyper-theoretical double-talk
just a way of occupying your time ...
so as to avoid having to mow the grass?

Mozart was guity of too my notes by some royal git ...
others on this Forum jabber too many words.

Ouch!

Get some tact, please!

keystring -
I appreciate your response. I did read your posts entirely and I still think we have here a mix up of concepts on hands. Studying scales on piano as a term has a pretty narrow common meaning of playing a set of very specific runs and arpeggios in the certain key with emphasis on fluency and evenness. That's how most of the forum members interpreted the subject of the discussion.



What you are advocating for, as I understand it, is learning the elements of music theory (a.k.a. basic rudiments) on piano in exploratory manner. This subject would include getting familiar with the structures of different modes, flipping chords, transposing little tunes into different keys of the circle of 5th, figuring out what Da Capo means, how scales and chords intertwine with each other, comparing binary and ternary and so on. However, this subject does not include playing formula pattern 4 octaves hands together with the metronome reading of 120 per minute.
I have nothing against familiarizing students with basic rudiments of music. More over I do it on a regular basis in my class. But this is not, in my view, the topic of this discussion.
That's why I suggested to clearly define what we are talking here about.

Answering


What you usually stress - in fact seems your only concern - is the ability to read music, and an outdated system that makes reading music hard. So if you ask about anything, it would have to go back to the ability to read.

One must often guess what you mean. By "dexterity" do you mean something like smooth playing? If so it would have to hinge on music reading, since that is what you stress. But "dexterity" (if I've understood what you mean) also comes from technique, which is something I had none of and am getting now, since as a child I had no teacher.

If you are asking to hear my playing, I don't think that is appropriate in this forum. You have it in PM in case that's what you asked for.

But if this involves reading, can you explain how dexterity fits in with it? And what you mean by dexterity, since I'm not sure it's understood?

Balalaika -
grabbing some key phrases:


The crux of what I've been trying to say is this: That there will be many ways for teachers to be approaching things, but a few things that are well known. We will tend to extrapolate what we are familiar with, and then think what someone is saying is that thing.

I've seen some arguments break out with a sort of "you are wrong" and "you are wrong". You'll see teacher A argue against what teacher B has written, and it appears to be an argument against what he thinks it means, according to the context he knows. I saw that here.

I am not advocating anything at all (literally). I have worked with, and talked to, teachers who are creative, out-of-the-box thinkers. When I teach, especially in problem-solving tutoring, it's the same. When such a teacher "works with scales", it may be in a manner that is very different than what you can imagine. At that point, the "you are wrong" will be arguing against something that isn't there (the common approaches), and at the same time a wonderful opportunity for dialogue (explore ideas) is lost.

I think I was seeing some of that, and this is why I posted. That's the main message I tried to bring across.

keystring -
Famous deep thinker and one time US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once said (among other amazing things) that:

There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.

My gut feeling tells me that in your message you are referring to the latter. But I am not quite sure. Some years ago I thought I was indecisive - now I am not sure about that neither.

However, I would like to conclude this discussion by slightly rephrasing another quote from Mr. Rumsfeld's repertoire:

Needless to say, keystring, you are correct. Whatever it was you said.

Or more simply stated, the essentially physical skills gained by long hours of scale practice may not correlate at all with either the intellectual or the intuitive harmonic knowledge useful for the complete musician.

.

I have no idea what you people are talking about. I wonder if anyone else reading this thread does...

Check the original message, what it says, the fact that a teacher is more or less accused of not teaching scales.

Now research the person who posted that. The child in question was taught first by her.

We don't know if the description of the teacher is fair. We don't know if the jazz teacher is fairly described. We know nothing about this situation.

Furthermore, people have given good reasons why scales may or may not be best to teach at some time or another. Chords have been mentioned.

Every time a reasonable point has been made, it has been ignored.

Why assume that there are not many points of view regarding how and when scales are best taught and leave it at that?

Agreed...

This is the part that I tried to stress. I addressed the situation of the OP in a separate post, including the question of the relationship of the two teachers. Nobody responded afaik.

The other element in this thread involves the teaching of scales. There were a lot of ideas and a lot of approaches. It would be nice, where someone is doing something different, to say "That's interesting. Can you tell us more?", rather than automatically dismissing it, or assuming that you already know what it must be about. "You" is generic.

That is what I was trying to bring across.

I must just tell you chaps (Gary D and AZNpiano amongst others)
who got hot under the collar with my upbraiding of keystring ...
that I have had a very kind private message from keystring ...
in which he openly admits to a very limited piano dexterity ...
although he is trying presently to work on some simple keyboard works .

Might I wish keystring every piano success in trying to catch up .

But the point of my broadside was to warn against a theoretical approach
on the subject of scales ... and talking vaguely without a hands-on
keyboard dexterity (not to mention the verbose overlay).

Kudos for this reasonable and courteous post.

I am also in the limited dexterity camp and always will be, for a variety of reasons (though I do make some incremental progress).

That fact can have an impact on the level of understanding of an issue. We may not consider something that is perfectly obvious to the experienced. But calling attention to the limited part sends a missed message.

Some people find it easy to explain, "no, that turns out to be wrong, and here's why....." Others seem to relish the opportunity to say, "you're obviously so stupid/inexperienced/limited you don't understand that......."

I believe this thread ran out of steam... Let's let it go...

You may have run out of steam for this thread, but if someone else still has steam, why try to persuade them not to post?

OK... Then may be you can tell how is that you learn what notes are in a key while studying scales. I am very curious about it.