Piano Scales, Chords and Arpeggios - (Large Notes Version)

Author: Wang Qingren Liao Su
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: This textbook has five major features:
1. Protects eyesight. Due to piano learning, children's vision decline has become an increasingly pressing issue that requires attention from both the piano education community and the medical field. In recent years, the onset age of acquired myopia has shown a trend of decreasing. Many children wear glasses even before they enter the first grade of primary school! With the growing number of piano students who practice daily—ranging from at least half an hour to two or three hours—the small notes, fingerings, and spacing on conventional sheet music make it easy for children to develop "ciliary muscle paralysis," leading to myopia. Many attentive parents find themselves in a difficult position between nurturing their children's talents and protecting their eyesight. Parents often tirelessly enlarge and photocopy the pieces their children need to play after each piano lesson, but the quality of the photocopies is often unreliable. While this large-note edition of Piano Scales, Chords, and Arpeggios cannot solve all problems, we have strived to minimize eye strain and foster a harmonious relationship between eyes and music sheets. We adhere to the international standard for piano sheet music printing—using "large format, large notes, and large font"—expanding the layout by 25% and combining with international sheet music printing standards to consider the sensitivity of eyes to color, employing off-white paper.
2. Concise and practical. In currently widely used textbooks on scales, chords, and arpeggios, nearly two-thirds of the content is irrelevant to amateur piano students. For example, double-thirds and double-sixths scales, as well as octave scales for both hands, are extremely advanced techniques in piano performance that neither amateur students need nor can realistically master. Therefore, these contents have been omitted from this Piano Scales, Chords, and Arpeggios. Despite the significant reduction in content, the textbook remains highly practical, as it covers all fundamental technical exercises for amateur piano exams from Level 1 to Level 10.
3. Easy to use. This book organizes scales, chords, and arpeggios of a single key into a single unit, eliminating the inconvenience of students flipping through the book to find arpeggios after practicing scales. Additionally, the arrangement of keys follows the progressive principles of piano teaching, starting with keys that have one or two sharps or flats, gradually advancing to keys with three to six sharps or flats. Compared to some textbooks that group all keys with sharps or flats together, this arrangement better aligns with exam requirements and makes learning more convenient.
4. Sheet music layout tailored to children's psychological characteristics. Previously, scales and arpeggios written with dense sixteenth notes often caused children to feel fear and boredom. Therefore, most of the content in this textbook uses longer note values, making the sheet music easier to read and more aligned with children's psychological tendencies—quarter notes are clearly more acceptable to children than a series of sixteenth notes. Furthermore, the tendency of piano students to play blindly fast is almost universal, and using longer note values can help overcome this issue.
5. Includes four-octave retrograde scales. Among all published textbooks on scales, chords, and arpeggios in China, none include four-octave retrograde scales. This textbook fills this gap, providing students with reliable material for practicing this special exercise and preparing for exams.