Scales and Arpeggios, A Pianist's Practical Guide: Is it True?

Readers have have asked if the dedication page paragraph is true. Yes, it's true. Likewise, the introduction is true. Yes, truth is stranger than fiction. 

Nearly always.

The Pianist's Guide to Scales and Arpeggios: As They Occur in Pieces You Want to Play

The "Look Inside" Feature is NOW AVAILABLE...
for perusal at Amazon. Here is a collection of 796  scales and arpeggios selected from standard repertoire in a volume of over 300 pages. Don't be a slave to mindless repetition of generic scales. 



From the dedication page:

As I put this collection together, I think of my colleague from long-ago graduate school.  She drilled scales for hours at a time, cascades of pearls in all keys that glistened brilliantly in the crisp air.  She played stunning Beethoven, a fourth concerto singing and clear, but it was the obsessive scales that captured her best heart.  When last I heard tell of her she had entered a spiritual order of some sort and never played again.

Strength and Independence Training for Pianists: Not Clear on the Concept

      I once served on a jury charged with deciding a slip and fall case. After listening for five days to arguments on both sides, which included much wringing of hands from the complainant, we decided unanimously after deliberating for ten minutes that the grocery store was not at fault. The paperwork finished and the bailiff summoned, we prepared to end our service and go about our business when one hapless juror raised his hand and said, "but I think the woman should get something."

Peggy Lee

     It seems to me that this is a clear example of that juror being unclear on the concept. If the store isn't at fault, they don't have to pay. The late, great song stylist Peggy Lee puts it wonderfully in the Lieber and Stoller song, "Some Cats Know and Some Cats Don't, And if A Cat Don' Know, He Just Don' Know." This is, of course, a great pity in the matter of civic justice. But a lack of clarity turns up everywhere, even when you least expect it.     

       Discussing piano technique, a professor of piano writes: "I do

believe many of the fingerings, note-grouping concepts, rotational ideas and so on make the passages easier to play than when approached with more traditional ideas." He then adds: "Many pianists'  technical mastery (I know from personal experience) has greatly increased after a year of vigorous Hanon and Czerny, resulting in much stronger fingers without injury." 

     My first thought was that he knows about these "many pianists" because he taught them and because that was his own path. The concept is also just in the wind. The latter explanation is very likely because, due to a long tradition of misunderstanding about how to play the piano in the most efficient way, many pianists have suffered needlessly through the mindless catechism of exercises designed to "strengthen" the fingers and produce "finger independence." 

     I've said it before and I'll say it again now: It's possible to play the piano using many different technical approaches or no particular approach at all. And I don't care to take anything away from someone who has found something that works. Elsewhere in this blog you can find detailed information about my views on technique, or in the book Piano Technique Demystified: Insights into Problem Solving. I feel obliged to point out, however, that if that professor of piano had applied the same judiciousness to passages in repertoire that he applied to Hanon and Czerny, he very likely would have achieved the same "technical mastery" and in the process he'd have something worthwhile to play.

Scales and Arpeggios: The Building Blocks of Music and Technique

Here is an excerpt from the introduction to my soon-to-be-published book, The Pianist's guide to Practical Scales and Arpeggios: As They Occur in Pieces you Want to Play:   

            One sunny afternoon, just as my weekly piano class drew to a close and I was racing to my studio, one of my colleagues from the local music community confronted me. We stood in the lobby of the recital hall at the university where I had just begun my tenure, I with one hand on the door. “Is it true?” she spouted, her face a puzzle of surprise and indignation. “You don’t believe in scales?”

      The way she framed her question with the word believe struck me as particularly telling. I had, in her view, committed a sacrilege. Apparently, word had spread in the piano community that I, a blasphemer, preached against the gospel and she would have none of it.

      I did not think of myself as a blasphemer. Not then and not now. I am a realist, an advocate of practical use of time and energy and my advocacy is based on knowledge and experience. But her indignation gave me pause and I knew immediately what had pressed her buttons.   

    At the first lessons with my students I quizzed them on scales and arpeggios. Did they know all the keys? Could they play all of the major and melodic minor scales hands together fluently at a moderate tempo for at least two octaves? (Notice I don’t include the harmonic minor, as it is for all practical purposes what its name implies, a function of harmony and not particularly useful as we careen horizontally up and down the keyboard.) I carefully observed their use of the thumb, which in many cases was not well understood, so that became a separate technical issue. Then I blasphemed. If the scales and arpeggios were fluent, I would not require daily drilling and I certainly did not want to hear them. The life of a college piano student, complex and time-challenged as it is, should not be encumbered with useless ritual. Yes, useless, time-wasting ritual.

But, Really, Are Scales and Arpeggios Necessary?

     Well, yes and no. We need to understand the topography of the keyboard and elementary keyboard harmony in order to navigate the keyboard’s shoals and depths. Since we propel our hands laterally up and down the keyboard by means of certain navigational tools, of which the thumb is one, how when and where to activate the thumb has always been and remains a primary issue. So a clear feel for the relationships of white to black keys and the appropriate digits for depressing them is essential. Learn the patterns.

     But do we really need to drill these learned patterns on a daily basis as, for example, in a technical exercise? Once learned and worked-in to the point of being automatic, it is no longer necessary or even desirable to repeat them in their root positions for the purpose of gaining finger “strength” or “agility” or “independence.”  Rarely do scales and arpeggios occur in music the way we learn them in books, that is, until now in this book.

     When is a scale not a scale? Scales and Arpeggios serve various purposes in the music we play. They can provide melodic interest, connective tissue, embellishment or an element of brilliance for its own sake. Our job as pianists is to notice this and organize our thinking accordingly. Here is a perfectly innocent G major scale minding its own business:

Innocent G major Scale

Now add some rhythm and the innocent G major scale becomes a melody on its way somewhere:

Melody in G major

Add some harmony and perhaps a touch of harp and we have a ballet by Tchaikovsky:

Nutcracker Ballet by Tchaikovsky

Does the G major scale in our scale book prepare us for this? No, and even a standard scale fingering is useless here.

        But, I hear you say, this is not really what we mean when we talk about practicing scales. True. The above example from Tchaikovsky’s ballet is a technical issue of another kind. I offer it here in order to stretch the imagination, in order to plant the notion that when we encounter a scale or an arpeggio in a piece of music, we should be prepared to first notice that it is a scale or arpeggio, or part thereof, and consider it on its own terms. Does the standard fingering work here? How can we efficiently negotiate its twists and turns? I promise you the scale in your piece will not proceed innocently from G to shining G with a prescribed fingering and no detours. At least, not very often.

Guided Sight-Reading Practice: Partners Proceed with Caution

     My husband and wife students came for their lessons the other day. One is considerably more advanced than the other, but both expressed interest in working on sight-reading. They brought with them my book, Guided Sight-Reading Practice at the Piano. (No, I don't make my students buy my books.) This collection of teacher-student duets takes the position that practicing with a partner can be helpful, a conclusion I arrived at for several reasons. Chances are that when playing with someone else, particularly someone with more experience, there will be more pressure to continue, without hesitating at problem spots. This automatically eliminates one of the chief impediments to reading. Also, a partner provides a steady pulse. And of course, it's always fun to make music together.

     Well, almost always. In the midst of working through one of the examples, the Mrs. pointed out that they had had some disagreement over the process and apparently feelings were hurt—ever so slightly, she said with a smile. They suggested I might include on the cover a warning to married couples and significant others.

      It was a joke. But this brought up a discussion of how to behave in ensemble rehearsals, the gist of which was that respectful dialog is always appropriate. I learned years ago that it's usually better in situations of musical disagreement—perhaps any disagreement—to resist beginning a sentence with the word you. So, couples, be forewarned.

Waldstein Sonata: Where do the Little Notes Go?

     

Beethoven in 1803

     A student writes complaining of difficulty executing leaping appoggiaturas in the Waldstein Sonata (1803-04), measures 271-273 in the first movement. Remember, I said, the small notes, nuisance as they can sometimes be, become much less so when given a place in time. This concept goes for all ornaments indicated by symbols.

     Here is the passage as printed:

Waldstein Sonata, mm 271-273 as printed.
Click on image to enlarge.

Notice that the small notes are in fact printed as appoggiaturas, not

Count Ferdinand Waldstein

grace notes. So, the conscientious performer would logically ask, should it follow the rule and be placed on the beat? Try it. This creates a small but unruly bump in the forward momentum. Now look at the suspension in the right hand. The appoggiatura is indeed the bass note of the chord to which the suspension resolves, albeit delayed by one note. 

    What to do? Go with the momentum. In speed, the appoggiatura will not register as a beat anyway, so it becomes a de facto grace note to which is given a place in time. If we remember our theory, this is a so-called faux bourdon progression. Here's how most pianists play this passage:

Waldstein Sonata, mm 271-273 as played.
Click on image to enlarge.