More Scales

Despite waking up later than usual, I managed to stick to my piano schedule this morning. I had maybe 15-20 minutes, so I dove right in to the scales for the day: F# through B, majors and minors.

As you might expect, there were a few easy ones and a few that were, well, not so easy.

Easy: F# major, G major, G minor, A-flat major, A major, A minor, B-flat major, B-flat minor, B major

Not so much: F# minor, G# minor, B minor

Oh, those minors! I'm actually doing the harmonic minors for each one, and I think that's part of what makes them tricky.

I'm also going to be doing Hanon each morning. I pulled out my old Hanon book when I first started playing again a few weeks ago. Before that, I hadn't played Hanon in years. I had one teacher, back in the early 80s, who assigned Hanon exercises ... and that's about it. Most of my teachers never assigned Hanon, and a few of them downright disliked Hanon.

My opinion? I kind of love Hanon. I like not having to think about the notes. That leaves room to focus on tone, technique, and whatever else I want to focus on.

So, speaking of focus: My focus with both Hanon and scales is to stay relaxed and focus on evenness of tone--and play at a tempo that allows me to achieve both of those goals. The "evenness of tone" area, in particular, is one where I can tell that I've regressed in 12 years of not playing.

This was a short little blog post, and I imagine they will all be short until my lessons are up and running. And since scales and Hanon are not the most exciting topics for most people, I'm probably doing my vast reading public a favor, right?

Until next time ...