Scales, Chords and . . . yawn. . . Arpeggios

Scales, chords and arpeggios fall into the quadrant of important but not urgent.  No one ever says, "we better work really hard on our scales this week because we have to perform them at the recital Friday night."  Let's face it, kids are resistant to working on technique. Perhaps like me, they would rather be working on the music.

When I was in grad school and practicing four hours a day, my teacher assigned 20-30 minutes of technique a day.  It become the warm-up to run all the major and minor scales and arpeggios.  It started to feel pretty good.  Like yoga.  Like starting up an operating system on a computer.

I ask my students in Suzuki Book Two and above do to a scale every week.  At least that is what they are supposed to be doing.  We are supposed to be cycling through all 12 major and minor scales, working our way around the circle of fifths.  They are supposed to be doing scales for 5-10 minutes a day.  I'm human, and more often than not I am anxious to get to the student's repertoire and we forego the scale at the lesson.  Then I realize that sixth months have gone by and the poor kid is still on c minor.  

The child is supposed to put the metronome on 80 and play one octave of the scale in half notes--making sure to use his best fingers, alignment and gravity.  Then they go right into two octaves of quarter notes.  Students in Book Three add three octaves of eight notes and Book Four adds four octaves of sixteenth notes.  Books Five and above start to increase the tempo and add other skills.

We do arpeggios in the same progression.  Book Two does one octave two hand cross over major and minor, and Books Three and above do one hand multiple octave arpeggios.

And last but not least--primary chords.  The child is supposed to play her primary chords starting in each inversion.  I have one student who actually does this--but I confess that it just takes a long time in the lesson so I don't push it with everyone.

Another school of thought is to work on technique as it comes in the pieces.  For example, when playing Clementi sonatinas, isolate the scales and arpeggios and make practice points of them.  There is much validity in this.

Sometimes it feels incongruous when kids are playing scales in so many keys that they don't even have pieces in.  No harm done but. . . it makes sense for the child to at least be able to play the scales and chords for the different keys her pieces are in.  I guess it all depends on the child.  Sometimes you have to choose your battles.  I do have one student obsessed with playing "Happy Birthday" in all 12 keys.

I happen to love theory and the study of technique, but I don't expect every student to share this passion. The best I can hope for is that our inconsistent study of scales, chords and. . . yawn. . . arpeggios will in some way serve to make the music easier and thus more expressive and meaningful.