Piano scales, chords, and arpeggios

Author: Wang Qing, Edited by Ren Liaosu
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
Features: This textbook has five key features:
1. Protects eyesight. Due to piano practice, children's vision deterioration has become an increasingly pressing issue for the piano education and medical communities. In recent years, the onset age of myopia has shown a trend toward earlier years. Many children wear glasses even before entering the first grade of primary school! With the growing number of piano students, who practice for at least half an hour to two or three hours daily, the small notes, fingerings, and spacing on traditional sheet music make it easy for them to develop "ciliary muscle paralysis," leading to myopia. Many attentive parents find themselves in a dilemma between nurturing their children's talents and protecting their eyesight. They 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 done our best to minimize eye strain and foster a harmonious relationship between eyes and music. Adhering to international sheet music printing standards, we use a "large format, large notes, and large font," expanding the layout by 25%, and combine with international 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, neither necessary nor feasible for amateur students. 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. User-friendly. The book organizes scales, chords, and arpeggios of a single key into a single unit, eliminating the inconvenience of 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 those 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 facilitates learning.
4. Sheet music layout tailored to children's psychological characteristics. Traditional scales and arpeggios written with dense sixteenth notes often induce fear and boredom in children. 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, for instance, are far more acceptable to children than a series of sixteenth notes. Furthermore, the habit of mindlessly playing fast is common among piano students. 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 feature four-octave retrograde scales. This edition fills this gap, providing students with reliable material for practicing this special exercise and preparing for exams.