Music Education — technical work

The challenges of scale technique As I am sure that most of you would agree, necessity, Plato's famous Mother of Invention, is at the very least a powerful driving force for change. Three years ago, I sat quietly contemplating the awkward hand position of an otherwise talented young student, as he whizzed up and down an A flat major scale in thirds. His tone was, as usual, harsh, with an abundance of undesirable accents – the obvious result of a massive accumulation of tension in his body. His knees were squeezed together, his shoulders hunched and his narrow fingers rigidly...