Does it help to practice scales?

If you want to train yourself adequately to be a classical pianist, then you do have to go through these motions. However, there are quite a few people who look down on learning piano this way, as they will be seen as boring and tedious activities, especially if your teacher appears old fashioned and stuffy, as well as slaved to tradition.

What's more, you might even decide to stop playing piano completely due to all the boring exercises you have to go through. There aren't a whole lot of people who get into piano for the scales and arpeggios - they want to make and play music that people can enjoy, and listen to.

Therefore, do you actually need them? Might you learn how to play piano songs without needing to exercise and train yourself all the time, thus killing our enthusiasm and subsequently boring us?

In my estimation, you should be able to do this without the seemingly pointless scale practicing, which is often just done because it is thought to be 'the right thing to do'. For one thing, you might not need to know every flat or sharp key in the book, especially if you do not plan on playing them that often.

Essentially, you want to train yourself to the types of music you will eventually play and make. Scales and chords are what comprise music; therefore, as long as you put forth your best effort and are disciplined about it, you can actually save time with those broken chords and scale exercises, so keep that in mind as you further your piano education.

If you teach piano, the difficulty lies in making sure your students understand that these exercises have a point and purpose, and to know what that point is; otherwise, their hearts won't be in it as much, and it will not work for them.

Try this to start connecting your scale work to the music that you like to play: Investigate a song that you really like, and want to learn how to play. You can pick anything as easy or difficult as you like, but the bigger the challenge is, the more effective this strategy will be. Check for the presence of broken chords or scales in the song, and be sure to keep them straight. After that, practice those scales and broken chords until you become extremely familiar with them. You can do this in both the form in which they appear in the song, or the regular method of going up and down the scale repeatedly throughout a few octaves. In this way, you can prepare yourself for the musical vocabulary the song requires.

Make sure you put your heart into the broken chords and scales that you play, so you are focusing on the musical feeling behind it instead of the mechanics. They will be less boring if you do them this way.