Fun Ways to Play Scales for Advanced and Intermediate Pianists

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One of the things I enjoy about teaching advanced students is that because of the students’ reading ability, I get to spend less time correcting pitches and working on creating a performance. The other thing I enjoy because I’m (not so) secretly a geek is really getting into piano technique! But don’t worry, I’m not going to go into that here.. I’m just going to show you how I make scales fun..

Does that sound like an impossibility?

Even though I’ve had gaps in my intensive practice, I’ve trained hard enough to enjoy scales! For a while I wasn’t inspired to learn any new pieces, but I played Russian scales. Since I learnt about improvising and regularly write my own songs and compose music for clients, I like to combine improvisation with technical practice.

The idea is to warm up while giving your brain a challenge that’s a bit different. So I come up with different combinations of exercises which I’d love to share with you.

Chances are, they are probably not original. Someone somewhere may have thought of these, but 10, 20, 30 years ago, I wouldn’t really have thought of practising scales like this! So I wanted to share them in case other people had not thought of them and were keen to find some ways to make scales more fun.

Here is a list of exercises that should correspond with the YouTube Playlist above!

  • Root Position Chord and Scale

  • 1st Inversion Chord and Scale

  • Broken Chord in Root Position and Scale

  • 1st Inversion Broken Chords and Scale

  • Ascending Broken Chords (FAST!)

  • Descending Broken Chords (FAST!)

  • 6th Apart Scale followed by Root/1st Inversion Arpeggio

  • Legato RH Minor 3rds and Staccato LH Melodic Ascending

  • Contrary Motion Scales starting with a third apart. Harmonic minors starting with C minor.

  • 1st Inversion Arpeggio and Root Position Arpeggio in Contrary Motion (legato)

  • 1st Inversion (staccato) and Root Position (legato) arpeggios in Contrary Motion

  • 1st Inversion (legato) and Root Position (staccato) arpeggios in Contrary Motion

This is by no means an exhaustive list. I hope to add to it. This may end up being a living document. So hopefully I will come back to it and add to the list as I add more scales to the playlist.

Due to time constraints, I have only demonstrated a few keys for most of these. Most of them are major.

Suggestions for other scales:
Minors (Harmonic/ Melodic)
Dominant 7ths, Diminished 7ths, Major 7ths, Minor 7ths, Half diminished.
Mixolydian, Dorian and other modes.
Pentatonic scales and Blues scales.

Enjoy!

 
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