Practice is the only key that could refine your ability to play scales and arpeggios. Repetitive and regular practicing can make your piano playing skill set more worthy and with time you will be able to witness yourself being one of the most expressive piano players. There is no doubt that scales are fundamental concepts of a piano and their understanding is extremely important. Whereas an arpeggio is a quick sequence series of notes played together back to back one by one. Arpeggios can add freshness to any song and thus it will also be helpful when you are playing piano to accompany a singer. Practicing scales and arpeggios are not something boring but it is more of a fun that benefits dexterity of your fingers. However benefits can only be reaped if you practice properly.
Regular Practicing is Important:
Whether you are practicing scales or arpeggios or other exercises, you would not be able to see successive improvement if you are not following a regular practicing routine. Good practices and habits would give you quick progress and you will be able to better concentrate on your piano skills. Some tips for practicing:
- Set a proper time each day and plan your exercises for each practice session. Justify the time you spent for practicing over piano by doing well.
- Take good amount of sleep before practicing. You must not practice with a stressed body or mind as you will end up being frustrated and there will be no benefit as such of this practice.
- Take a proper nutritious diet in order to have the energy of practicing. It appears that you only sit for practicing piano but it consumes a lot of your energy as playing piano is an intellectually stimulating task.
Practice Scales and Arpeggios:
When you practice scales and arpeggios on a regular basis, it improves your technique and knowledge of tonalities and harmony. Not only that but you will improve at hearing and expressiveness.
- Do some exercises for warm up with some major and minor scales.
- Begin your practice sessions with scales and try not to make mistakes.
- If you are making mistakes, try all over again and keep on practicing unless you become accurate at it.
- Now practice arpeggios and focus on proper fingering during this piano practice.
- Use one hand first and then another one and then both together for a contrary movement.
- Now you should move to chromatic scales where pianists are recommended to practice new key each time.
- Practice sessions must not be boring but there should be something new every time. In order to do that you should try different rhythms for practice sessions and then try to improvise by using the scale it is written with.
- Sight reading is one of the best ways of practicing. However it would be challenging in the beginning but as you will get good at it, you will find it much easier.
Some Tips to Remember:
- Practice with variations: Bring in different variations and in your practice session with varied touch, articulations and intensities of sound and scales. These variations would increase expressiveness in your performance and would aid you in communicating emotions through piano scales.
- Do not go too fast: Maintaining a reasonable pace is important but more important is to deliver an even performance. You need not to play too fast as speed would come with time and practice but you need to focus on your work in order to maintain a certain velocity.
- Do not force practicing or playing piano: Forcing yourself to something would not give you desired results. Before beginning to practice scales and arpeggios, you should prepare yourself physically and mentally that this learning would progress at a slower rate. Do not take excessive stress and do not try to learn everything at once.
- Consider practicing in groups: When we talk about scales, you can begin practicing with first through quarter notes and then eighths and at a later stage sixteenths. Take challenges but not really tough ones. Move according to your level and advance accordingly in practicing.
Conclusion:
Regular practicing is the only thing that can help you in accomplishing your goals. Do not neglect consistent practicing of scales and arpeggios. Try different patterns and rhythms and occasionally include some heavy pieces of practicing. Working with scales specially would give you best exercise for a warm up. Moreover it helps in sharpening your fingering and improves your hearing and memory. With regular and careful practicing of scales and arpeggios you will not only become proficient piano player but would also be able to add expressiveness and more emotions to your practice and performance sessions.
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