In search for some more piano exercises I came across this one titled Advice To the Young Pianist. It’s basically a confirmation of what I discovered already: the more you play the better you get 🙂
Frederick Hodges’ advise is basically to play major, minor harmonic and melodic and minor and major arpeggios through all 12 keys every day as a bare minimum. According to him it shouldn’t take more than an hour and a half to play through them all.
I’m practically there with most of the suggested exercises. I could probably play through all scales in all keys within the given time if I wanted to. This is a major progress for me who a month ago thought playing through all scales in 2 weeks was a major achievement.
But I managed to shorten the practice time considerably by learning the circle of fifths to the point when it’s become almost automatic now. I don’t need to think of how to play a given scale any more. Plus, with all the time spent at the keyboard my fingers are also used to the key changes.
For a while I considered not focusing so hard on technique and use the time to practice other aspects of piano playing such as sight reading which is extremely important for me too. But good technique makes my practice so much easier I’m definitely not giving it up.
Instead, I’m hoping to be able to speed up my scales practice even more so I can squeeze in other things too.
And it’s funny how I used to think practising scales was a daunting task. I find it to be most relaxing now!
Stereo Café 