Each year, Piano Lessons in Your Home hosts the “Young Performer Awards”, where music students of all ages and ability levels have the opportunity to submit pieces for evaluation by expert third party evaluators.
As part of the YPA Series, piano students may also elect to compete in PLIYH’s “Scale Olympics”, where they are asked to demonstrate their mastery of piano scales based on prompts by the evaluator. Because one instructor or instructional method may differ from another in terms of approach to teaching piano scales, we’ve developed a series of instructions for each of three performance tiers.
In this video, Piano Lessons in Your Home teacher par excellence Shaun demonstrates the scales required to pass the Scale Olympics Tier 1. Tier 1 focuses on the major and minor triads, and performers should be able to play the triads blocked, broken, legato, and staccato. Students are also expected to play one octave scales, hands separately or together, in a select few major and natural minor keys.
Your student may wish to use this video and those that follow in the next two weeks to help prepare for the Scale Olympics, or simply as another practice tool to help develop scale fluency. Happy practicing!