5-Minute Piano Lessons

Practicing Piano Scales is Most Worthwhile when Done Smartly

In Part One, I suggested you ask yourself three questions regarding piano scale practice:

“What will I, personally, get out of the effort that will help me play the music I want to play the way I want to play it?”

“If scales provide something I need, is there any other way to get the same skill/knowledge, perhaps in more enjoyable fashion?”

“Are all scales equally important?” meaning, “Which scales deserve the most attention?” and, “Are some scales not worth my time and effort?”

This essay deals with the first two questions, which are closely related.

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Scale practice provides the following benefits to a pianist:

1. Increases manual dexterity
2. “Grooves into” both the mind and hands which notes go together

They used to do one more thing – provide a sort of “pre-learning” for much of the material found in classical music. To clarify what I mean open any serious classical sheet music book. You will find that much of the music itself consists of “scale runs” up and down the notes in the various major and minor scales. When a pianist learned the scales, they could easily play this material when it appeared in the context of a piece. This benefit is much less important today when so much of piano playing consists of renditions of popular songs, such as ballads, movie themes and show tunes. Of course, it still happens in much jazz music.

We have seen that scale practice DOES provide benefits, albeit fewer for the popular music player than the classical player. However, the “downside” is that many folks don’t enjoy this practice and some simply won’t do scales at all for any reason. For such players, the second question above becomes very important and needs an answer.

The answer is, “Yes!” and here’s how:

Many, many activities produce manual dexterity and it really doesn’t take a “rocket surgeon” to see that the particular brand of dexterity needed to play popular songs can best be produced by – wait for it – playing popular songs! It’s almost TOO simple. Do the thing you want to do and you will get better at doing it. All you have to be wary of is not realizing that this process means GETTING better, not just instantly BEING better. It WILL take some time. However, delaying full gratification is something most adults are familiar with.  My experience tells me that some reasonable effort on your part will produce observable improvements that you will see and appreciate.

As for “knowing which notes go together, in both head and hand,” the solution is the same – do what you wish to do with the scales you will encounter and you will learn those scales, in both head and hand. This means that you will learn that if there is a single sharp in the key signature of a tune that sharp is ALWAYS an F. You will very soon remember this fact and your hands will learn to include it automatically. Yeah, you can do this via scales, but you can also do this simply by playing tunes using that G Major Scale.

So the moral is to do what you want to do and you will get better at doing it. Just recognize that it will take some time. For more advanced coverage of  this topic and many others see the ebook “Dan Starr’s Big Book of Adult Piano” available here.

Tags: Amateur Pianist, Ballads, Benefit, Business Scale, Classical Music, Classical Sheet Music, Downside, Jazz Music, Major And Minor Scales, Manual Dexterity, Movie Themes, Music Book, Music Business, Music Marketing, Music Player, Piano Playing, Piano Scales, Play Music, Popular Music, Popular Songs, Record Labels, Renditions, Show Tunes, Skill Knowledge