Staccato scales: Staying on the PLANE without a bumpy ride

Most students become very disconnected when traveling through a staccato scale so their journey from lift-off to landing is often bumpy.

In the E minor Natural form, for example, a redundant E, F# occurring in every octave will fool a player into thinking he’s got to brace for ELEVATION that makes his hand jerk forward on the seemingly higher black note.

Psychologically and physically, the student will have lost his “center” of gravity in this lunge, deterring a smooth, even, horizontal passage from octave to octave.

On this particular journey of crisp, detached articulations, an adult pupil worked on braving obstacles that impeded him from enjoying a turbulence-free roll-in to final resolution by applying specific practice routines that included clustering or “chunking.”