When I spoke with my new piano teacher, we talked a bit about scales. What scales did I know? How did I practice them, back in the days when I used to practice?
I demonstrated my usual routine using C major: With the metronome, one octave in parallel motion, with one note per beat. Then two octaves in contrary motion with two notes per beat. Then three octaves in parallel, three notes per beat. And finally four octaves in contrary with four notes per beat. And then rinse and repeat with the relative minor.
So she said, "All twelve each day might be a little much, so let's make it six per day."
Gulp.
With Deborah, I did one per week: one major scale, with the relative minor. And then the inversions and arpeggios.
Six scales per day? And with the relative minors, that's twelve!
Soooo ... I have some work to do.
I've been under the weather for a few days and haven't played much, but I managed to play scales in six keys tonight (actually twelve, including relative minors): C through F. All of the white keys were a breeze, as were C minor, D minor, and E minor. C# minor, E-flat minor, and F minor ... not so much. I'd been playing with the metronome on 60, but I had to slow down to 44 for those three.
Tomorrow I play F through B. Somehow I think I'm going to spend more time down in the 40's tomorrow.
I'm wondering if I should stick with relative minors, or just do majors and minors in the same keys each time. For example, do I practice the majors and minors from C to F like I did tonight? Or do I do C major through F major, and then A minor through D minor? In pairs? As in C major/A minor, D-flat major/B-flat minor, D major/B minor, etc? I think maybe.
Then again, maybe not.
I can experiment. Play around. This is very new to me, this scale thing. I'm sure I did scales in college, but it wasn't until I worked with Deborah that I started to play them all in contrary motion. Only then did I really learn my scales (even though learning contrary motion was quite the struggle).
I'm kind of happy to be working on scales. I've always loved scales. Once upon a time, I could fly right through them. I can't do that now ... but it will be nice to be able to do that again!
I demonstrated my usual routine using C major: With the metronome, one octave in parallel motion, with one note per beat. Then two octaves in contrary motion with two notes per beat. Then three octaves in parallel, three notes per beat. And finally four octaves in contrary with four notes per beat. And then rinse and repeat with the relative minor.
So she said, "All twelve each day might be a little much, so let's make it six per day."
Gulp.
With Deborah, I did one per week: one major scale, with the relative minor. And then the inversions and arpeggios.
Six scales per day? And with the relative minors, that's twelve!
Soooo ... I have some work to do.
I've been under the weather for a few days and haven't played much, but I managed to play scales in six keys tonight (actually twelve, including relative minors): C through F. All of the white keys were a breeze, as were C minor, D minor, and E minor. C# minor, E-flat minor, and F minor ... not so much. I'd been playing with the metronome on 60, but I had to slow down to 44 for those three.
Tomorrow I play F through B. Somehow I think I'm going to spend more time down in the 40's tomorrow.
I'm wondering if I should stick with relative minors, or just do majors and minors in the same keys each time. For example, do I practice the majors and minors from C to F like I did tonight? Or do I do C major through F major, and then A minor through D minor? In pairs? As in C major/A minor, D-flat major/B-flat minor, D major/B minor, etc? I think maybe.
Then again, maybe not.
I can experiment. Play around. This is very new to me, this scale thing. I'm sure I did scales in college, but it wasn't until I worked with Deborah that I started to play them all in contrary motion. Only then did I really learn my scales (even though learning contrary motion was quite the struggle).
I'm kind of happy to be working on scales. I've always loved scales. Once upon a time, I could fly right through them. I can't do that now ... but it will be nice to be able to do that again!
Comments