Scales & Sonatas

"Hello, what part of the test would you like to take first?"

"The scales and arpeggios, please"

"Very well then, would you play an E Major scale, contrary motion, 4 octaves, followed by an F # Major scale, hands a third apart, four octaves."

The British examiner sat in a wooden, antique desk at the corner of the room, with sheets of paper in front of him; blank forms waiting to be filled up either with positive remarks of "good musicianship" or remarks of "failure". The pointy insulation material which covered the room's walls made the not-so-small exam room look like a dungeon. The piano was clearly new, the keys had a peculiar touch to them: they have not yet faced great pianists, intent accompanists, challenging, finger-blurring Liszt pieces, touchy Chopin pieces in which they were touched with delicacy as much as emotion... A hard, fresh piano; the hardest to play on. 

On Tuesday, I took the ABRSM piano exam for the first time. I had prepared my pieces as well as I could have with all the time I had left after the excessive time that IB requires was spent of lab reports and studying. The aural test was a "no worry" one, I was pretty confident in my ear for music, that probably comes with playing the piano for 13 years. The part which worried me the most was the "Scales and Arpeggios" part. Every applicant who wants to take the Grade 7 piano test had to memorize 60-something scales and arpeggios, from a scale in F# Major, which has 6 sharps, and the most number of sharps one can have is seven, to diminished sevenths starting from A, both hands, four octaves.

Somehow, this test managed to make me have to play the piano and do it without enjoying it. I used to practice the piano because I had fun doing it, but when preparing for this test, I dreaded each minute of practice. Yes, playing scales improves a pianist's skills a lot, but when you're not doing something because you enjoy it, I don't think there is any point in doing it. I think that playing 40 scales from memory, allegro, with both hands or separately, is just a way of fitting art into forms, molding music to a shape in which it can be criticized...by numbers.

I played a Gershwin piece, one of Tchaikovsky's Months, and one Beethoven Sonata.

I am also preparing for a piano competition, and I need to learn a Kuhlau Sonata.

Hey!

Sonatas!

The most boring forms of music for the piano, at least for me. Pearls of the classical era. Twists, trills, clean, expected, totally predictable chord progressions, clear dynamic markings, and the left hand working like a machine. Every kind of test for the piano involves a sonata, because the sonata itself is "grade-able". There is not a way for you to show yourself through it, no emotions, no room for interpretation, every one plays the sonata exactly the same way. This way, it is easier for the examiners to give grades to the pianist, based solely upon how you play the stuff that is written in front of you on the piano, exactly like it is written. They judge you on similarity, not individuality.

These kinds of exams and strict, demanding teachers and parents make the little pianists believe that the only thing to play on the piano are boring, mechanical pieces.

They make them believe that they have to play exactly what is written in front of them.

They make them believe that you cannot enjoy playing classical music.

They don't tell them that you can play the rock songs you listen to everyday on the piano, or that you can change the pieces you play, interpret them yourself, even if it is a sonata or a nocturne.

They don't tell them you can actually enjoy classical music, both listening to it, and playing it on the piano.

Fitting music into standards and rubrics and forms is the worst way to decide how good a person is in playing that instrument. Because of this insane compulsion of humans to measure everything and prove they're the best in that subject, they are killing the joy of playing classical music, by reducing the colorful, wondrous, melodic, beautiful and incredibly varied world of classical music which could be played on the piano, into simple, arid scales & sonatas.