Piano Scales Are Puzzles: Let's Tackle Them Together

Рет қаралды 4,193

Күн бұрын

Practising your piano scales is probably the single best thing you can do for your piano playing. In this tutorial we explore how you can approach scales to make them more absorbing and rewarding, and exactly why regular scale practice is so very useful.
Along the way we dig into ideas about exercise and habit and think of ways you can build a scale practice that dramatically increases your control, expression and musicality on the piano.
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00:00 Piano scales are puzzles
00:32 The first puzzle: C major scale, right hand
01:17 The three key factors
03:20 Adding a black note (F major)
04:07 Two smoothing strategies
04:56 More black notes, dynamics and the left hand
06:48 WHY are scales so useful? WHY!?
09:34 Piling on the challenge: scales with two hands!
10:48 Using a metronome to target regularity
12:04 The power of piano scales as habits
13:26 A health warning
13:48 !!THE ULTIMATE CHALLENGE!!
15:43 There is no end point
16:02 Building your scale practice
#piano #scales

Пікірлер: 20

@user-kn2ko3mg9z Ай бұрын

This is by far the best channel for piano tutorials. Thanks a lot sir.

@BillHilton Ай бұрын

You’re welcome - thanks for the kind words!

@DennisLees 4 ай бұрын

Amazing instructional content! Great work.

@denveringram2304 4 ай бұрын

F# harmonic is tricky, but once you learn the beginning fingers and where finger 4 plays, it falls into place. I find B harmonic minor to be one of the most challenging scales because the black keys it utilizes are far apart. Scales with a lot of black keys are actually easier for me. It’s the scales with a near even mix of white and black keys that I find the most challenging.

@DaveJeffery 2 ай бұрын

Another vote for B harmonic minor from me - it's a tricky one.

@knives6683 4 ай бұрын

"Health warning, scales can be addictive". Agree to disagree? :) I hate broccoli but i have it anyway because i know it's good for me. I have the same relationship with scales.

@RuecianGray 2 ай бұрын

The description you gave about how scales feel more comfortable going up, but less comfortable going down made me think that perhaps the reasoning is because most humans are right-handed. And so the reason it feels like pushing/pulling is mostly based on our referencing the right hand as the dominant hand. The right hand is "pushing" when going up a scale, but "pulling" when coming down the scale. Which made me wonder, if left handed piano players perhaps feel the opposite about this. And that made me wonder that perhaps a good way to do some casual training even when you are away from the piano is to start doing more tasks with your non-dominant hand. If you are right handed, start performing daily tasks with your left hand instead of your right hand as much as you can to help bring you into a more ambidextrous balance. Use your non-dominant hand to unscrew lids. Use your non-dominant hand to pick up your cup. Perhaps even attempting eating with your spoon/fork with your non-dominant hand one meal a day. If you can get more comfortable with your Non-Dominant hand leading, it should make these types of uncomfortabilities begin to dissolve on a piano.

@pip5461 4 ай бұрын

Thanks for the tips... I'll try to follow your technique. I learned the guitar as a child and have no problem with the chords, without thinking, but the piano leaves me so frustrated...

@lawrencetaylor4101 4 ай бұрын

Merci Bill. I'll be tackling your books soon...

@MartiA1973 4 ай бұрын

Weirdly fascinating, thank you.

@nolanross6870 4 ай бұрын

Amazing video. I am learning scales right now but it seems like every time I search up 12 major scales, I find different ones, one website had a Db major as one of the 12, another one didn’t and had Bb major. Every website seems to have the first 7 but then a different set of 5 in terms of the flats or sharps.

@Tokcheege 2 ай бұрын

Hi, Would you upload a video tutorial series about explanation musical phrasing in piano?

@mattkaspar2031 4 ай бұрын

My Rubik cube, 2 x 2 x 2, still unsolved. An aside, those child car seats do require an engineering degree and provide complete cardio aerobic workout. Its the flats in key signature that for me are the obstinate scales - the 3 and 4 fingers do not cooperate. Sharps fairly uniform treatment with thumbs, n'est-ce pas. Thanks Bill.

@andrewstillwell1191 4 ай бұрын

I'd much rather play scales than that rubix cube, that thing drives me nuts 😜

@melkarr 4 ай бұрын

I can see it sounds different, harmonic, than natural and minor, but what is the nature of it? Is there every single harmonic/natural/minor scale for every major note scale? Thanks and congratulations for such amazing videos full of passion for training

@BillHilton 4 ай бұрын

Thanks, and you're welcome! Yes, there's a harmonic, a natural and a melodic minor scale for every note. The natural minor scale has the same notes of the relative major scale, but in a different order (e.g., C major is C D E F G A B C while it's relative minor, A minor, is A B C D E F G A). The harmonic minor sharpens the seventh note of the natural minor scale. It basically does that to create a satisfying leading tone (i.e., the note a semitone/half-step below the tonic) and, additionally, to create a naturally occuring major V chord (hence "harmonic" minor) which offers a strong resolve to the tonic than a minor v chord. The melodic minor sharpens the sixth and the seventh on the way up ("ascending melodic minor) while on the way down it naturalises them and is identical to the natural minor ("descending melodic minor"). The melodic minor is often used to build a set of minor key chords that don't feature too many augmented chords - it's a bit technical. Most people learning the piano will, at least for the first few years, learn the major scales and harmonic minors. Does that help?

@melkarr 4 ай бұрын

Thanks for such quick answer@@BillHilton

@Theknight-ri1js 4 ай бұрын

You really are an awesome teacher ❤, I have a question I know it's weird, but would I be able to learn piano on a phone app because I can't really afford buying one now, but I'm still obsessed with learning