Picking Up the Pieces: A Piano Practice Journal

I'm doing a new kind of scale practice. While I haven't abandoned my usual scales altogether, I've begun working on the major and minor blues scales as part of my warmup. I'm getting better at playing them in C, and I'm also working on practicing them in G. The C minor blues scale is very familiar to me, and the C major blues scale is ... getting there. It's a challenge to play both (major up, minor down) while doing the 12-bar blues in a Charleston rhythm. Another way to practice this would be with different bass lines. But for now, I'm jus trying to get the notes!

Here are a couple of blues scale patterns that I’ve been doing every day since I learned them a couple of months ago, back when I was on Lesson 3 of the 10-Lesson Blues Challenge at PWJ. (I’m now starting Lesson 8.) One video is of a six-note pattern, and the other is of a 3-note pattern. These were so hard when I first learned them, and they still sometimes take me a second to get in the groove, but I have come a long way with them. 

My scales for this week are Gb major and Eb harmonic minor. I don't think I've ever played anything in either, though I would like to learn Schubert's beautiful  Op. 90, No. 3 Impromptu in Gb major someday. Tonebase TWI This week and next week, I'm participating in a Tonebase Two-Week Intensive (TWI) on improving scale speed and accuracy. For my scale, I've chosen to work primarily in Eb harmonic minor, and for two reasons: (1) it's one of my two scales o' week, and (2) it's possibly my weakest scale. Maybe I should have done A major or A minor, or F# minor, since those are the main keys of the Rondo alla Turca. Or Ab major (Maple Leaf Rag) or F minor (Chopin). Bare Necessities is in F, C, and G ... but those are the easiest scales, and I wanted a challenge. So, Eb harmonic minor it is, though I'll also be putting in some focused work on Gb major as well. For the TWI, I made this "baseline" video, which was a little embarrassing to share ...

I have stuck faithfully to my plan of focusing on different major/relative harmonic minor pair of scales each week. Over twelve weeks, my plan is to spend one week each of intensive practice on a single scale pair. This week's scales are B major and G# harmonic minor. B Major and G# Harmonic Minor, Contrary Motion, at 100 My goal was to have both contrary-motion scales at 100, and I seem to be there, though I think my B major scale is just a little sloppy (part of why I played it through a second time in the video). I can't always hear all of the notes, so I'm not sure whether I'm playing them together. Learning to Hear Fast? How does one teach one's brain to hear individual notes when they at a fast tempo? 100 isn't even that fast, but it feels kind of like movie previews these days -- the pictures move so fast that an old person like me can't follow them. Anyway, I feel like I'll be able to play these scales with greater precision if I can learn to h...

Yes, friends, my “Breakthrough Week” even includes a breakthrough on scales. According to my handy-dandy practice journal, I started working on scales again in late February, which was about six weeks into my grand return to the piano life, and about a month into my Tonebase and PWJ memberships. My Scale Routine I generally start my morning practice with about 10 minutes of scales and my evening practice (if there’s time with just a few minutes of scales). Either way, here’s what I do for both major scales and harmonic minor scales: 2 octaves in similar motion going up, and then 2 octaves in contrary motion, and then 2 octaves in similar motion going down Using the metronome, as of last week, I could do all of the major scales in this way at about 80 bpm, and most of the harmonic minors at about 60, though some of them (a.k.a., the black-note keys) were giving me trouble. (BTW, I don’t do scales in thirds or sixths. I don’t know why. I just never have.) For the past month or so, I’ve b...

I mentioned a while back that I've started playing scales again, and that I'm working on getting them back up to speed while keeping them smooth and (hopefully) beautiful. I've managed to get my major scales up to 76 on the metronome. My first big goal was 80, but I'm going to celebrate early by sharing this video of them at 76. B-flat went and gave me a little trouble, but not too much. I'm happy with where I am on the majors. I'm going to stay at 76 for a few days because they don't quite feel automatic enough at this tempo. But they will soon. So here they are -- major scales in similar and contrary motion, in all keys, going around the circle of fifths. (Now if I could just learn the secret of playing the blues scale in triplets against the medium blues shuffle in the left hand ...)

 I've gotten back into playing scales every day, alternating between majors and harmonic minors. I play both in parallel motion for two octaves, I play them in contrary motion for two (actually four?) octaves, and then back to parallel motion for two octaves. Here is an example (F# harmonic minor): I don't know why I insist on continuing them to play my scales the way Deborah taught me ... but I do. I think my brain likes it. I can play these scales in all keys ... but there are a few keys where I stumble a bit. So I've started spending a little extra time on a different problem scale every three or four days until I have it. I started with B harmonic minor, and then I went to F# harmonic minor, and now I'm on C# harmonic minor. After that, it will be G#, E-flat, B-flat, and F (all harmonic minors). I can play the majors pretty well, though I do tend to trip up on B major, so I'll probably give that one a few days of extra attention, too. Current speeds? Majors at ...

I've managed to squeeze in several short practices over the past few days. None of them were "worth writing home about," but I do want to keep track of my progress here, so this will be an all-in-one update. Scales I must say, I am so happy to be focusing on scales and not arpeggios right now. We'll return to "arps" in good time, but for now I'm working diligently at getting the scales back in my fingers and my brain. I'm playing 24 scales a day: 12 majors plus 12 harmonic minors, all in parallel and contrary motion. I still doing the majors at 60 and the minors at ♪ = 50. I do all of the majors plus six minors (C, C#, D, Eb, E, and F) in the morning, and then the remaining six minors (F#, G, G#, A, Bb, and B) in the evening. And they're getting better! It really doesn't take that much time, either, particularly now that I'm becoming comfortable with the scales again. I imagine I will move up a degree on the metronome for next we...

I woke up late this morning. Not only did I not have time to work out, but I didn't have time for the usual 20 minutes I've been devoting to piano in the mornings before work. I still managed to squeeze in about ten minutes. I spent those ten minutes working on the F harmonic minor contrary motion scale. Playing it in eighth notes at 60 wasn't working. I was getting through the scale, but never without stumbling. And when I did  get it right, it felt more like luck than anything else. So I slowed down. Really   s-l-o-w-e-d   down. All the way down to where I was playing a single note on each beat of the metronome ... at 40! At that pace, I could anticipate where my fingers would go next. I was anticipating three and four and five notes ahead. I had time to think . I felt like I could breathe . I felt like ... I knew what I was doing. I played the scale at that pace several times, and then I inched the metronome up to just a little faster...

I had my first piano lesson! Followed by my first "real" practice, where I'm actually working on something that an older, wiser pianist (my new piano teacher, Carol) told me to work on! I have been under the weather for several days and wasn't sure if I should keep the lesson appointment, but I did, and I'm glad I did. I now have "assignments" to keep me nice and busy until next time. At today's practice, I focused on several things: Scales Scales! My beloved scales! I focused on the majors today, seeing which ones of those I really could play at 60. Everything sounded fine, except for Eb, Gb, and Ab. Of course, the black keys. So I spent a bit more time on those and worked them up to 60 pretty quickly. They were all in my brain at some point. There was a time that I could play all of them at much faster than 60. Still, I was surprised that just a few minutes' focus on some trouble spots rendered nice, smooth scales at 60. I will focu...

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, incl...