Three Really Good Reasons Every Piano Student Needs to Practice Scales

"Scales are my favorite part of learning to play the piano," said very few piano students, ever.

Ah, scales...the misunderstood creatures.

Many adults look back upon scales with distain, the memories of them being up there with being slapped on the wrists with a ruler.

But, how often do we stop to ask, why?

Why do we care about scales? Why should every student practice scales?

And so, I present to you...

(trumpet fanfare)

Three Really Good Reasons Every Piano Student Needs to Practice Scales

1. Music is Created from Scales

Would you ever eat something you didn't know the ingredients of?

I take that back...we do that all the time. (cough, *processed foods*, cough)

The point being, a scale represents a key. A key represents the "palette" from which a piece of music is composed. To know a key is to know the ingredients of a piece of music.

Let's look at two examples.

Student A learns to play G major fluently. Up and down, backwards and forwards.

G major as an F-sharp in it.

So, when the student sees a key signature of one sharp, he knows he is in the key of G major (or the relative minor E minor, but minors are for another blog post, another time).

Remembering the F-sharp isn't a struggle, because he is familiar with the "universe" of G major.

Student B doesn't know what scales are. When looking at a key signature of one sharp, he knows all of the F's need to be sharp...maybe.

But, that's it. It's an inconvenience. It's not about being in a key. It's only about changing the F's.

It's something to try to remember, but more likely will just be pencilled in the music.

Student A gains a thorough knowledge of what it means to be in a key. Student B is inconvenienced at having to remember the F-sharps, which seem to exist solely to torture the student.

Not to mention, playing in harder keys proves to be nearly impossible. 

2. Technique, Technique, Technique

Practicing scales also lends the benefit of being able to practice technique.

Without needing to worry as much about reading music, rhythmic accuracy, and all manner of other details, a student can focus on the technical aspects of playing the piano.

How to produce a healthy tone, how thumb crossings work, arm alignment - you know, all that stuff they never mention in the movies.

Exciting stuff, right?

There's also an added bonus - if you have a scale passage in a piece of music, you won't need to practice it. That's right...because you've already practiced it, with good fingerings and everything.

3. Scales Train Our Ear

Have you ever heard someone play blatantly wrong notes and keep trucking along like it's normal?

This is what happens when we're still training our ear.

Now, there are many ways we work on ear training. Active listening, singing, even moving.

But, once again, scale practice trains our ear for context when we are learning a piece of music.

So, if we're playing a piece of music in G major, and we play F-natural, our ear says, "Wait!!! That doesn't belong in the key you're in - fix it now before someone notices!!"

Crisis averted.

One could write a book on the value of scales. But these are three of the most important reasons we should love scales for the wonderful entities they are.

No longer to be feared, we should hoist scales on our collective shoulders and parade them through the streets.

We should erect statues in their honor.

We should write songs about scales using the keys of the scales being written about.

And, like any good friend, scales will be there for you in good times and bad. To guide you, to make sense of the world, and to give you something to do when you find five minutes of random time to practice.

Scales...the unsung heroes of music.