They say you only know a scale once you can play it hands together in contrary motion. Well, it's been 11 days since I learned F# minor scale in parallel motion, and now I can finally play it in contrary motion at half of my target tempo. This one is just so tricky!

In the mean time, I am really glad that I finished Section 1 of Faber Adult Piano Adventures Classics Book 1. There are 12 pieces in this section named "Beginning Classics: Easy arrangements with simply harmonies". I really enjoyed them.

It's possible that a lot of people know it already - with scales, such as parallel motion, and contrary motion etc, and including arpegg type scales etc in parallel and contrary - and in harmony style. Two hands that is. People practising those exercises can/will get extra benefits when it comes to creating music .... as it is the strategic mixing and choosing of various patterns - parallel, contrary etc plus introducing counterpoint etc, that can lead to very interesting and nice music. Sure - scales are indeed heard in many pieces of music. And when the parallel and contrary etc methods are applied in particular ways for some sorts of music making -- it can lead to extremely nice results.

Pallas It's the F# minor harmonic scale. Unlike the previous scales I've practiced where distance between notes are more even, this one has a couple of spots where the lateral distance stretches and contracts (D-F-F#, and D-C#-B). So, instead of wrist moving laterally at steady speed, mine kind of need to do a little stop-n-go around those spots. Then, when doing contrary motion, it become even more tricky because the stop-n-go points of both wrists do not happen at the same time. Also, because one of the stop-n-go point is right at the end of the octave, I find going from one-octave run to two-octaves run a big hurdle.

At least that's my experience. Maybe there are better solutions? I am all ears.

      iternabe At least that's my experience. Maybe there are better solutions? I am all ears.

      It's a great achievement and I can relate to your feeling of that scale being tricky, but from a technique point of view the movement should still be as smooth as possible rather than "stop and go". The elbows and forearms have to glide smoothly parallel to the keyboard while the wrists and fingers mostly navigate the keys. This is true of any scale although this one and the closely related sharp minors (g# and c#) are quite tricky.

        Pallas
        Great to hear you found a teacher that works for you! I'm sure your progress will greatly speed up under this teacher.

          Pallas adult learners are so much more disciplined and focused than children! Even if your progress doesn't speed up, at least you'll be learning everything with better technique which will serve you very well as you progress 🙂

            Hi Pallas, how great that you found a teacher who seems to be a very good match for you!

            *
            ... feeling like the pianist on the Titanic ...

            a month later

            I just finished Piano Adventures Level 4 (equivalent to RCM grade 2/3) and started on PA Level 5.

            Between that and working on a bunch of RCM 3 repertoire pieces and etudes, I feel like I've learned a lot this year. I can't say exactly what I've learned, other than working on PA technique exercises with some impossibly fast tempos and pieces with an expanding range of key signatures. I've just noticed lately that that pieces are getting easier to learn.

              JB_PT She needs to come up with a cool catch phrase for her practice army.

              The Molybdenums.

                You guys are much more creative than I am. 🙂 I seem to have an odd mental block when it comes to making up names for anything.

                • keff replied to this.

                  JB_PT

                  Pallas

                  Just very inspired by so many people sliding into this efficient way of learning😁

                      Today I finally got a satisfactory recording of Aria (Theme from La Traviata). It is the last piece in the second section of Faber Adult Piano Adventures Classics Book 1. There are 12 short pieces in that section. In a little over one month, I have all of them learned and recorded. Yay!

                      Next up, section 3, 11 classic pieces in the key of G major.

                      4 months later

                      My achievement yesterday was getting the knack of Scriabin Op. 11 no. 17, in those moments where there is contrary motion between the hands, the left hand playing descending chords and the right hand ascending melodic notes. I've tended to avoid thicker textured music with a bunch of chords at quickish tempos, and, playing through the piece I was getting mentally bogged down trying to process what's going on and where to put my fingers and how to articulate (the left hand is marked staccato and the right hand not). It's a really good feeling when my brain isn't telling me "lets slow down so I can figure this out" so I can better focus on the music. I'm making an effort this year to do more pieces with thicker textures to get out of my comfort zone.

                      Another thing is that I've been working on my trills for the last month. In Bach's 6th Sinfonia, one of the weakest parts of my playing is a simple right hand trill while the left hand sounds the theme modulated onto the dominant. Yesterday was the smoothest and most controlled I've managed to yet. I also do daily practice of that part in Sinfonia 2 where the right hand does a 3-5 trill while playing notes with 1-2. It's the one thing that's stopping me from concertedly learning the piece. Yesterday was the quickest and smoothest trill I've managed to do there. It's one thing to do something isolated in practice, and another to be able to do it in the flow of a piece, though, but it's still heartening.

                        lautreamont I also do daily practice of that part in Sinfonia 2 where the right hand does a 3-5 trill while playing notes with 1-2.

                        That trill is hard to do well with 3-5. I had trouble with it too when learning that Sinfonia. In the end I decided to play it with 2-3 and play the alto voice with the thumb.

                          That's a good idea. I've thought of doing that too, but it's one of those things that is a kind of a technical goal, especially since I can do it in the left hand. There's a similar trill towards the end of Chopin 72 no. 1 where you could also cheat or cover thumb movement with a tap of pedal (the trill is why I haven't learned that Nocturne yet). It's funny that it crops up in a couple otherwise early intermediate pieces, when most of that kind of trill is in more advanced repertoire like Thalberg's trill étude or one of the pieces from Feinberg's First Suite (or to an extreme, works with double trills in one hand).

                          7 days later

                          I finally finished Unit 1 in Piano Adventures level 5 book. I started the unit back in September. One of my goals has been to finish with Piano Adventures this year. I thought it would be easy-peasy based on how quickly the other levels went. After spending so much time on just the first 1 of 6 units, I'm not so sure. We'll see...