You should try the cardiologist's diet:
"If it tastes good, spit it out"

My mother is a cardiologist?

I actually do eat a lot of kale. A mixture of mild salsa and avocado works as a salad dressing for it.

I disagree, and I could call this a lazy response. (friendly wink) I don't think that what I wrote was that unclear or incomprehensible, and I am sure that it makes sense to you, as a teacher, that how scales are taught, toward what, etc. matters.

I did scales. My hands went numb. I had followed questionable instructions. 'nuff said.

I know you're a better teacher than that. When you get the transfer students, you don't just decide that they are stupid, impatient or have a made up popularized "disorder".

Btw, kale with a bit of oil and salt, put in the oven, is scrumptious - like leafy potato chips but better. A new family favourite since half a year. Pretty good in soups too.

Morodiene, this means you truly value teaching and want to do the right thing for your students. You are not driven by being paid and doing what the student/parent demands to keep a customer. As a piano student, I don't know what I don't know and I pay for being taught. If a student wants to do what they want to do anyway, really they do not need to pay an expert, that is just a waste of money.

An employee came to me to mentor them in research, because she failed the first time she had taken the class. She was working on her masters. If she did not pass a second time she would be dismissed from the program and owe the funding back for the scholarship. The employee has to graduate is part of that contract and serve time back to the government. She was passing at mid-point but contended I was too hard on her and she no longer needed my help. However, by the end of the semester her grade fell and she did not pass. She ended up owing 28,000 back for her scholarship. I wanted to ask her was I $28,000 to hard? My point is learning is not easy and some students don't feel they need to work hard to get what they want.

If I could buy being a good pianist I would, but its not for sale. You only get there by hard work and practice. Most of us need a good teacher as well. I commend you on not compromising your values for the dollar.

By extension, you could say musically "if it sounds good, don't practice it". ... oooh sounds so evil ...

The local jazz professor near here often says "if it sounds good, you're not practicing. You're showing off. Stop showing off and start practicing."

What's your recipe? I keep trying to cook kale in the oven and it ends up burned to a crisp. (Obvious disclaimer: I am a terrible cook.)

Try a lower temp in the oven.
Also get an oven thermometer; the thermostats on household ovens can be wildly inaccurate.

If you're interested in cooking, even a little bit, you need to read this:

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=food+lab...g=googhydr-20&ref=pd_sl_9spnszfekd_b

The book is Food Lab: Better Home Cooking through Science, by kenji Lopez-Alt.

It's well written and explains not only how to do things but why.

I have it from the library now but may buy a copy, it's that good.

CookWise by Shirley Corriher is a terrific resource.

Well, they're sort of different things. That is, I don't know if Groove On was joking (i.e. grin emoticon) - because I do follow that advice in the sense that you don't need to practise what is already solid. You need to work on what needs to be worked on.

The jazz professor's advice, I'm not sure how that is meant, in what context. I have a practising mode where I am working methodically on this and that, and it doesn't sound musical or "good". But there is a point where you put it together - still practising - and it should sound good, as well as feeling comfortable in the body (my weakness being physical tension from poor acquired habits). Do you know how he means that?

I take a break for a month, and come back to a discussion on scales and kale. Anyone try, "If you don't play your scales, I'll make you eat some kale"? JK.

Continuing the tangent... raw kale is bad in anything more than tiny quantities, but in cooked form, it's got benefits, and is way better-tasting than raw. Here's my favorite recipe with kale in it:

Pepperpot Soup

12 c. water
1.5 lbs. stew beef
ham hock
10 oz. fresh baby spinach with stems removed, finely chopped
1/2 lb. kale, finely chopped
10 oz. fresh (or frozen, thawed) okra, cut into "wheels"
6 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
1 onion, peeled and chopped
6 green onions, chopped
2 small chili peppers, seeded and chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 sprigs fresh thyme (or a couple pinches dried thyme)
13 oz. coconut milk

(I don't follow this recipe exactly--we like more potatoes and a little less spinach and kale, and about half of the onions, peppers, and garlic.)

In a large kettle, bring water to a boil. Add beef. Reduce heat, cover, and simmer for about one hour.

Add ham hock.

Cut up spinach, kale, okra, and potatoes. Add to soup kettle.

Brown onions, peppers and garlic while beef is cooking.

Cook the beef until it's tender. Pour soup through a sieve to catch the meat and vegetables, with another large kettle underneath to catch the liquid. Remove any bones from meat/vegetable mixture. Put meat and vegetables in kettle with liquid.

Add fried onions, chili pepper, garlic and thyme to kettle. Simmer until soup thickens some.

Add coconut milk and stir well. Cook ten minutes more and serve hot.

Delicious with a side of scales, arpeggios, chords, and cadences.

Could we combine the two into a portmanteau and just say "skales?"

And what would be the name of this recipe if we just left out the spinach, kale, okra, green onions, and thyme?

LOL, yes. I was trying to find a clever way to put "skales" into my post -- you supplied what I was looking for.

How about Guyanese Pepperpot? See HERE. (Mine was based on Jamaican Pepperpot.) You won't find kale, spinach, or okra in the Guyana version, and you could skip the green onions and thyme in the recipe at the link and then miss out on a couple more of those poisons.

Back on topic now for the OP:

Have you looked at Keith Snell's Scale Skills series in the Kjos Piano Library? The books (at eleven levels) include scales, arpeggios, chords and progressions in 24 keys, plus other exercises.

My first two piano teachers (I studied with them for a total of maybe about three years) did no scales or anything of the sort with me. So when I went to my third teacher, starting around age 11 or so, and she introduced me to scales and such, it was a rude awakening. I was one of those kids who hated scales.

How ever you decide to teach scales, etc., or whether you use books or not, start early! Let it be a natural part of their studies from the earliest stages. My own children didn't have nearly the bad attitude about scales that I had when I was a student, and I'd guess it's because I had them play them much earlier than it was ever required of me.

I find it hilarious how my post turned into a cooking channel!

My method currently is to teach the B Major scale by rote to even beginner students after they know how to play a few Major pentascales correctly. I've had success with a 7 year old and she loves to show off her B Major skills. My city offers Technique syllabi that I use to introduce scales. I also have separate print outs that include one octave scales, cadences, and two octave arpeggios. Once they master a few scales and arpeggios, I will likely refer to something else that has more than one octave such as Hanon. Perhaps I'll create a table of all the scales, arpeggios, and chords so students can track which ones they've learned. I hope students will see that many of the scales and arpeggios are similar and be motivated to tackle the table quickly after they've learned the first few.

Do you have students who struggle with pentascales? I have a kid who transferred to me from a kiddie program two years ago, and she still can't play pentascales correctly. Do you use any interesting strategies?

FWIW, I never teach scales to young beginners until they reach it in their method books--and for some kids I might decided to postpone scales altogether. I think this rote-teaching of scales will only form bad habits later on.