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I think this depends on how good your scales are now. Even if they are not that good, I don't think you should spend 1/4 of your two hour practice time one them.

I think practicing a scale in any key helps with scales in general so it's not like you have to play a piece in B major to get any benefit from practicing the B major scale. Also, scale technique(evenness and passing the thumb under or non thumb over) is useful any time even part of a scale is played which is quite common Baroque, Classical, and Romantic music.

Why would you want to practice scales for 30 minutes a day? Practice the ones that need practicing.

BTW, you need to build in the complete repertoire of scales - which includes scales in thirds in all keys (sometimes a.k.a. "double thirds"), and chromatic scales in thirds - one-handed, then both hands together. And don't forget octave scales and broken octaves and alternating octaves, like the sort Horowitz used to finish off Chopin's Scherzo No.1:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7Rkx4mtS7Y

This might seem stupidly simple, but I have really found it to be true...

Practice what you are bad at the most. Don't waste time doing things just because people say you "should" or "have to" or "everyone does." Specifically in context of your question "Best way to progress in technique," - don't waste time practicing things you are already good at.

Figure out what level you want to be at and then make a plan. There is no point to be able to play 290bpm octave scales when that is not in any repertoire.

If your right hand can play wonderful double thirds fast enough where you have never felt hindered by it in difficult passages in rep you want to play, don't waste your time extensively practicing right hand double thirds...work on a technique that is preventing you from playing whatever piece you are trying to play.

Everyone seems to always talk of technique as if it is in a vacuum. The whole point of technique is to play rep. Look at the rep you want to play, identify what techniques you will need to play it, and go from there.

Right now about 75% of my practice time is devoted specifically to one technical weakness. Why? Because it's the only one preventing me from finishing the piece well. What is the point of sitting down at the piano and working on anything else until you can bring that glaring weakness up to par? But people do it all the time...

I think this is only appropriate for those wishing to play the most advanced virtuoso literature, maybe 1%-3% of all pianists.

I actually think that is not really necessary at all; I never even bothered learning double third scales or any of that crap, but I can pretty much play anything in the standard literature. Nobody in conservatory was sitting there hammering away at them either, we had too much music to learn.

On the contrary, those abound everywhere: octave scales in Rach's Op.23/5 (which the OP says he's playing) and Schubert's D664, broken octaves in Rondo alla turca, alternating octaves in Luddy's Op.10/3 and Mendelssohn's Rondo capriccioso. Chromatic scales in thirds in Grieg's concerto.

None of that can be considered as remotely virtuosic. Nor even advanced virtuosic.......

But here is a perfect example of what I am talking about. Someone practicing "octave scales" is probably not likely to ever see an "octave scale" exactly as practiced in the music. Maybe it will have certain slurs, maybe rhythms will change, maybe it is not a true perfect scale.

The octave scale in 23/5 are stacatto (which is different fingering than normal octave scales where I would use 4-5 in the right hand). So now, are we going to practice every variation of every possible permutation of technical exercise that may ever be encountered in literature? Practice them in every rhythm, every articulation? What about sections that are scales but end with a note of an interval that requires you to use a fingering that is not correct for where you would normally end a scale?

Or, we could just look at the score and practice what we cannot do well.

I know which is more time effective...

There's nothing to stop anyone from practicing octave scales when he comes across it in his first piece of music - and just that particular scale(s).

Or even a C major scale. But if he cannot play a scale and he wants to play Wolfie's K545 - no problem, he'll just learn every single scale (with its own fingering) in it from scratch, right?

Or.......get used to the movements required to play scales, whether single, thirds, chromatics, octaves etc - and he'll easily adapt those same movements to play them slurred, partly slurred, staccato, staccatissimo, accented every second note or every seventh note, every permutation in between.

I know which I'd rather do (and have done). I don't want to have to learn a specific technique - especially one that crops up so often - every single time I come across it. Of course, I draw the line at scales in seconds - after all, there aren't that many Scarbos around.....

I could make the argument that you will come across new technical challenges far more often if you are using the time you spend perfecting scales to learn new repertoire.

But the bottom line is that I am not really disagreeing with you in principle - yes, every pianist needs a basic level of competency to play something as simple as a scale. I am just cautioning amateurs with limited practice time against thinking "If I can learn scales to xxx bpm my overall technique will improve!"

No, it won't. Your SCALE technique will improve. Which will not help you when you have to play passages of double sixths.

Adding to the good advice that computerpro3 made in this post (I won't quote the entire post), let me add to the above portion of it:

When working on a piece, don't spend a lot of time "playing through the piece" from beginning to end, and don't spend a lot of time practicing the parts you already play well. Concentrate your repertoire practice on those sections that are causing the most challenges. From time to time, of course it is necessary to put everything together and play through the entire piece. This latter should not be the primary focus of your practice sessions, however.

Regards,

I'm going to say another thing that is stupidly obvious but I think people forget because they have become performance works...

Etudes were specifically composed as exercises most of the time (there are exceptions, but generally speaking...)

Why practice double third scales when you can learn the Chopin double thirds etude, and have a showpiece once you're finished? I have found etudes very helpful when trying to improve one point of technique.

While I recognise this as good advice, and I have read it many times, I do not entirely concentrate my practice on the difficult sections. I do "play through the piece" quite often. Sometimes, this is for pure enjoyment - but also, I find that my playing of the "easier" sections becomes more and more fluent, and I can concentrate more and more on details of phrasing and expression.

That depends on whether you actually want to learn that thirds (not 'double-thirds') étude. Personally, I have no wish to learn it, and there are many more pieces with thirds that I'd rather play, and have played.

And in any case, if you've never played thirds before, it is almost impossible to master from scratch. Whereas someone used to playing thirds (including chromatics) - like yours truly, from my ABRSM exam days - can even sight-read it. Or at least, sight-read it sufficiently well to realize it's not worth learning, because it sounds too much like a study (unlike, say, Op.10/3, Op.10/12 and Op.25/1 which sound like real music an audience would want to hear and not just for their pyrotechnics).........

Lol, that's just not true. Anything can be mastered from scratch, given the correct approach and enough work. People also told me I couldn't get into a top 10 school without knowing my scales, but I did it....

I probably can't sit down at a piano and rip off half of the things you said people need to master in a quality fashion. But I can play many concertos, sonatas, etudes, etc, so I don't really care.

You are probably just gifted.

A duffer like me needs to learn his scales just to pass Grade 1.

Actually, there are scales in Grade 1........

Uh, if you can't learn how to play those thirds from scratch, how do you learn to play thirds in a scale? It's the same thing...chromatic scale and heptatonic scale thirds with some "trilling", and some left hand notes thrown in.

I definitely never practiced thirds scales before learning that etude, and then learning that etude was largely a matter of being able to play third scales, so I don't understand the dichotomy.

Hi Asb,
2-3 months really isn't that long. If you keep it on hand and play through it a few times a week for the next few months while you're mostly working on other things, it will settle in and get more comfortable.


I don't think scales, chords and arpeggios need to take long. 15 minutes a day is plenty and you could probably do some good work in just 5 minutes. I have my students do one key at a time and we rotate through the keys at a pace that makes sense for them. People who do have more time to work on technique should have an etude to work on, too.

To computerpro and others who question the value of playing scales etc:
Can one be a competent pianist without working on scales? Sure. I know plenty of competent pianists who rarely play scales. But all of them readily admit that they'd be more competent if they were more diligent about scales.
We can probably all agree that scales are likely to make us better at doing certain things at the piano, and they are unlikely to make us worse. One could always try including a scale, chord and arpeggio regimen for a month or so, seeing what the results are, and deciding whether one likes that result enough to keep the regimen.

Yes, practicing scales will make you better at playing scales.



Sure, but I was responding specifically to the OPs question of the "best" way to progress in technique. I am not saying scales are useless. I am simply saying that they are not the best way to improve your overall technique if you have limited practice time.

I really don't understand the fascination with hammering away at scales. It seems to be one of those things people do because they think it's part of "working hard" or some nonsense.

Once you can play a scale evenly and with quality up to the maximum speed you will ever see it in rep, what's the point in continuing to spend 30-60min per day doing it? It's a scale. It's not Petrushka.

Strangely I rarely encounter scales in my pieces that are not in some way "off' ("wrong notes") and if I do they tend to be short and only in one hand. If one wants to play Wolfie spending time with scales may pay off, but I wouldn't touch him with a stick. In general music that is based on showy scales is as boring as those scales themselves imo.

This is a never ending discussion because people are hard set on their beliefs just like in so many other things in piano playing...As an amateur with a big job 15 minutes is a long time and I will rather use it on the music that I want to play and save things like scales to those rare occasions when I have excess time. For me it is enough that I know the basic scales. I see no benefit for me to drill them and all the variations (which I could never get my mind properly engaged with because it bores me to death). When I encounter something in music it will be polished then.

I tend to agree with you, and for the same reasons. Apart from having a completely contrary view of Mozart.