Why practise scales

It only takes a minute to sign up. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. First of all I want to point out that I practice scales a lot and even enjoy it. I just don't know why they are so important, as this site says for example:. Maybe practicing scales is important to memorize them, and the proper fingering is important to improve dexterity. Is there a better answer? Trains your fingers to play common patterns found in music.

There are a lot of scales in music. They're just so satisfying, why not write them? They can be a controlled environment for practicing other techniques, such as playing fast, playing in octaves, and playing fast in octaves. It trains your ear to hear the qualities of a key and the different scale degrees within that key.

When learning a new piece, practice scales for the keys within that piece. You'll catch your own mistakes more often since you'll be accustomed to tonal qualities of the keys in that piece.

It also trains you to play smoothly in time. Practice speed, but maintaining a steady tempo with a variety of articulations. You could also use them to experiment with rubato credit to Matthew Read in the comments. This is annoying in the beginning, but it helps you to get equally familiar with all the different keys and not just C major and A minor. There are a ton of scales in classical music. They tend to be hidden, though, with only a few notes at a time. Take, for example, Mozart's Rondo alla Turca: It's main theme has a snippet of a scale, and its middle section is almost entirely made up of scales.

The 3rd movement of Beethoven's Moonlight sonata has brief runs to build up tension. What is the point of scales, and why should you include them in your practice? Scales are like a musical laboratory, or testing ground. Stripping back the intricacies and details of music allows you to focus on perfecting the foundations:. A good sense of internal time is a must for every musician. You need to be able to keep time accurately yourself, but also play together in larger groups.

Practising scales with a metronome helps you to learn to place each note in just the right place. Just set a slow metronome and try to fit four, then five, then six notes evenly into every beat. She said that this was the test of a good chef, and you could often tell if it was a top-notch restaurant or not based on this one dish. Sweet eggs always tasted a bit funky to me, so I had to take her word for it, but it seems that this is a real thing — not just something my mom made up.

How it took him perhaps plus attempts to get it just right. And that rush of adrenaline and emotional roller coaster you experience before performances is totally normal too. Performing at the upper ranges of your ability under pressure is a unique skill — one that requires specific mental skills, and perhaps a few other tweaks in your approach to practicing too.

And learn how you can develop these into strengths of your own. And begin to see tangible improvements in your playing that transfer to the stage.

This is great information to impart to my piano students. How do we make scales less boring for the young student or even more — for the teenage student! Should we have them play scales in different moods and speeds? Are there other ideas out there. Thanks for the post. Extremely well articulated, Noa.

The scale is the most utilitarian of all-in-one practice tools, as I have written and often told students. Mostly, they seem unconvinced, offering only a blank stare. When you come to accept this gospel of scales, it signals that you have made an important transition as a musician.

You have finally embraced that practicing is about process, as much as it is about musical content. Pieces and etudes can become extraneous distractions to the work at hand. Another way to say it, think of practice in its Eastern sense as a state of being. Release the Western implication that it is a verb. Scales are a perfect fit for this Zen of practice. They can create a spacious sense around your daily work. Scales offer you the promise of pure, high quality practice.

This, in turn, enables you to truly master the fundamentals with a higher sense of ease, clarity and purpose.

Great article, much agreed. Good article and it express what my teacher recommends me every single session: scales every day, for warming up and put the things in their way!!

Scales are the foundational building blocks of melody, and serve as a great template through which to examine and improve upon our musical abilities. In short, they must be made into music no matter how seemingly mundane a particular pattern may seem.

About 10 years ago I returned to daily practice of scales. Not only did this allow me to address and clean up certain elusive technical challenges I was dealing with on my instrument, but it also gave me the opportunity to go deeply into finding even more music within the scales themselves.

I always advise my students to avoid ruts with the patterns they choose when practicing a scale. Every musician needs to think like an improviser or composer in this respect: Permutations, inversions, new articulations, rhythmic and metric variety, and more. Make it all sound fresh. Make it all sound like music.

Make it sound like you. The key things are rhythm and continuity. Do not stop playing, even if you get lost; make something up. Think about it. The singer will never want to work with you again. Czerny is a good place to start, as well as some of the Bach inventions and sinfonias.

Over time you can move onto Chopin studies and Bach Preludes and Fugues. Experiment with the music you like; just remember to keep practicing those scales!

Great advice. I am a beginner with 15 months experience and I practice scales every day but will add a metronome as I struggle with rhythm particularly when playing pieces. I will also site read every day from now on. I have been playing for a year and a half. Now, on my second scale book. Slogging through it.

Learning all 12 scales, in multiple octaves is brutal! Then minor scales. Got any motivational ideas? Learn each Major scale along with its relative minor scale. Work on them in pairs! Same key signature, same notes, they just start and stop on a different note. So for C Major, the relative minor is A minor. Also, practice both the Natural minor scale and then the harmonic minor scale. For harmonic minor you just raise the 7th scale degree. In the case of A minor, this would be a G.

Work on one set C Major and both natural and harmonic forms of A minor for a week or two then move on to G Major and its relative minor of E. It is handy to have a printed copy of the circle of 5ths with the relative minors printed on it as well. For my students, once we get to E, I go back to the top and then go counter clockwise to F, then to Bb, then to Eb, then Ab. I finish up with Db, F , and B last.

Also, always play the scale to whatever piece you are playing before you practice that piece. Thank you for your article.