Piano Scale Technique: Learning Scale Patterns | The Piano Prof with Kate Boyd

Hello and welcome. I'm Dr. Kate Boyd. I'm really glad you're here. Today I'm going to talk about scales. I get a lot of questions about scales and so I thought I would just spend a little bit of time addressing the question of what progression I recommend that my students learn their scales in. Now this is assuming that you already know all of the scales, like you've learned the fingering, you've gone through all the keys, you know all 24 major and minor keys, you're comfortable with harmonic, melodic, and natural minor scales and so this is a video about what to do once you sort of know all of your scales and either you are going back to review them after not working on them for a long time and then deciding it's time to start getting serious about technique again or if you are simply wanting to continue a progression through your scales. By the time a student comes to work with me at the university level either they already have a technical routine that they do on a daily basis that incorporates scales, arpeggios, etudes, warm-up exercises, or they don't really have any kind of organized warm-up or technical routine and they learned their scales a long time ago but don't practice them anymore. So with those students what I do is I always say okay let's work on the scales and we're going to just get so that you play all 24 of those scales comfortably two octaves hands together. So you would just play two octaves and then the relative minor, A minor and then I work around the circle of fifths so you want to do one flat that's F major and then the relative minor, D minor. I always recommend using the harmonic minor as the default minor scale partly because that's the most common minor scale that appears in classical repertoire and also just to avoid having to spend three times as long on the scales and then you can change it up sometimes do melodic sometimes do natural but really just harmonic as the default is really helpful. So if you notice what I did was I started at C major I did the major I did the harmonic minor then I did F major that's one flat in the key signature and then I did D minor as the harmonic minor and then the next key I would do would be B flat and then the harmonic minor and then G minor. Practicing the scales going around the circle of fifths like that and also doing the major and the relative minor is a very helpful way to continually reinforce your understanding of theory because classical music moves very often by fifths and so if you're used to thinking in terms of C major, F major, B flat major, E flat major, A flat major and just working through the circle of fifths and then you can go the other direction too you can go through the sharp side to practice it that way as well. Alright so once you've done your two octave scales hands together then what the next step would be would be to work to four octaves and so going back to C major etc and then going to F and around the circle of fifths like I said. Then what I always recommend doing once you get up to four octaves with all 24 keys being able to work around the circle of fifths is then using your metronome to work up by benchmarks and the benchmark tempos I recommend are starting working up to 60 to the quarter note and so four notes per click and so that's this is an example of that so it's etc right that's 60 then you get all of your scales all 24 scales comfortable four octaves at 60 then the next step is 72 and then the next metronome benchmark is 80 then the next bench benchmark would be 96 and then your goal tempo for scales is 120. The way that I recommend breaking up scales is taking advantage of the fact that 24 is divisible by different numbers quite easily so you could do four scales a week if you're really trying to remediate and practice your fingering you just can't remember it then just work on four scales a week because then you will get through all 24 scales in six weeks. If you want to spend a month doing it then work on six scales a week and if you want to just spend two weeks doing it and if you're already quite confident and it's just a little bit of superficial review then doing 12 scales a week will get you through the cycle in two weeks but I recommend not just going for all 24 scales unless you are already really secure with the fingering because along with practicing the notes it's very important to reinforce the actual fingering of the scales and I have two scale books that I always recommend for students and that's the Brown Book of Scales and that's the Alfred Scale Book and I'll put a link to both of them in the description all right so now we've worked all of our scales up to four octaves at 120 okay so that's you know pretty fast right so here we are right and back right so you do all your scales up to 120 then the next step is to practice contrary motion scales and the way I do that is by using the grand pattern the grand pattern is you start at the bottom and then you go up two octaves in parallel motion then you go in contrary motion two octaves then you go contrary motion in two octaves then you go up two more octaves down out in and down and I'll show you exactly what that is in case that sounded a little confusing so up two octaves now out two octaves now in two octaves then up two octaves and then up and then down and then you do that next key etc so getting really comfortable with the grand pattern is the next step in scale practice and that can take kind of a while because a lot of times when you get to the black keys it can take some real practice to get comfortable with contrary motion with the hands going out in opposite directions while feeling really secure with the fingerings then what you do as you practice through the scales you go back to learning all 24 of them at 60 and then you work up to 72 to 80 to 96 and then 120 and that's going to take a while right the contents of this video are not to be you know done in just a couple weeks it's like this is kind of a plan that could take half a year or at least a few months the next step after you're really comfortable with all 24 of your scales using the grand pattern in parallel and contrary motion is to practice your scales in tenths and sixths I go up in tenths and then I go down the keyboard in sixths I go up the keyboard in sixths and then I go down the keyboard in tenths and I'm going to demonstrate that to you so going up in tenths then I do a little turnaround where the hands go in opposite directions for two notes now I'm in six and I go down in six and then up in six and then down in tenths so I do this chromatically so then the next key I would do is d flat I'm in six then in tenths etc same thing right going up so you do you just do all the keys all the major keys chromatically that's how I do it now I'm going to clarify how that little turnaround works because you can't see my hands with this camera like this so I'll show you from down here so I'm in d major for example I'm going along and then this is the top I go to the tonic note the d in the left hand and then I just flip the hands I go in opposite direction by two notes so I go using the correct fingering and then I come down in six etc etc and then I come back up in sixths then again I go to the third note to f and then I flip it around I go in opposite direction and then go down now if that's confusing to you then just practice in parallel tenths and parallel sixths so that would just be like right so that's tenths and then sixths would be just starting with the right hand on the tonic left hand one sixth below etc then you work that up same thing working up to 60 72 80 96 and 120 you can practice a combination of all those things so if you are really focusing on a technical thing like hand position just practicing four octave scales to look at that if you're working on keeping a flat wrist you can put put a phone there put some kind of mirror or or a camera there and just videotape yourself playing a scale and then check and see if your wrist is dropping super low or if it's super high and then start to work on addressing that if you're working on musicality or if you're just wanting to work on speed then practicing the gram pattern is really good for that and also practicing the tenths and sixths is very helpful at really reinforcing fingering because if you've never practiced scales in tenths or sixths that really challenges you to secure your fingering because it can be very confusing at first if you want to know more about the way that i approach scales in my teaching then check out this video right up there because i talk about my three foundational principles for scale playing i'll see you there and happy scale practicing