Klarinet Archive - Posting 000397.txt from 1997/05

From: Martin PERGLER <pergler@-----.edu>
Subj: Why learn scales?
Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 16:08:51 -0400

The current discussion on learning scales memorized/writing them out, etc.
makes me wonder. I thought I knew why we learn scales and such, but now
I'm less sure. Maybe there are reasons I'm missing.

Disclaimer: I'm an enthusiastic and largely self-taught amateur who
isn't nearly as diligent at scales as he should be.

Here's my take. Comments?
1. We practice scales and arpeggios (s&a) because they are common patterns
in most music we play. We can't practice all possible sequences of notes
with complete diligence, so we pick out some of the most common patterns.
2. We do s&a because good musicians should know some music theory and
recognize it in context (and use it for instance for better tuning of
chords)
3. We practice s&a because teachers and audition committees are likely
to ask us to play them.
4. We learn s&a to have some mindless patterns to use when we are focusing
on something else in our practice (like tongue attack, long tones...)

For many of us, 3 is the strongest argument, though it ought be the
weakest. Argument 2 has something to it, but I think it is rather weak: we
certainly need to understand "theory", whatever that means, and use it,
but the contribution of practicing s&a is minimal; theory needs more
focussed mental effort and has little to do with finger agility. Argument
4 isn't really an argument; it's an application. We could just as well use
any other "licks" we know.

That leaves 1, which is a very strong argument. Just how strong is clear
when playing music where these patterns do not occur---for instance in
a lot of atonal music, or other places where "wierd runs" occur (I'm
playing Rachmaninoff's Symphonic dances now; the 2nd movement is a killer
for this reason). It's the same thing in reading words. Reading letter
by letter is too slow. But we can't just read word by word because
we can't have all words in the forefront of our brains. So we often
use syllables, and crash and burn when they look unfamiliar: ask an
English speaker to pronounce Krzystov Zbiginiewski, and many will
freak not because they don't know how to pronouce rz, but because it
just looks "too wierd".

For argument 1, I would think it's crucial to practice scales and
arpeggios **while looking at them on the printed page**, to learn to
recognise the patterns when they occur. Memorizing scales works for the
weaker arguments 2 and 4, and may be necessary for the unfortunate
argument 3. Writing out s&a is probably good for argument 2, but
irrelevant for 1.

Comments, flames, explanations welcome.

Martin

-------------------------------------------------------
Martin Pergler pergler@-----.edu
Grad student, Mathematics http://www.math.uchicago.edu/~pergler
Univ. of Chicago

   
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