I know I'll be criticised for this, but my daughter is planning to take Grade 1 piano without any real teaching. Yes, I know, shock, horror. She is Grade 5/6 on her main instruments, so this is just a bit of a challenge to her, nothing serious. If she wanted to take it further, I'll get her a proper teacher, I promise

I'm a music teacher, although not piano, my own piano development stopped at Grade 5 several decades ago. I do feel able to help and advise, but have one query:

How usual is it for left hand scales to go down then up? My daugher prefers them this way for some reason. It says it's ok in the pieces book, on the scales page, but how often would examiners hear them like this? Often enough not to comment or think it's wrong?

Hi salrec,

It's the student's choice as to whether they go up or down. The examiner will not penalise for this. All they are concerned about is whether the notes are correct, the student plays the scale asked for (i.e. they play a major if asked for and not a minor, and vice versa), the notes are flowing and the tempo is at the required m.m.

Also encourage your daughter to learn scales with both hands. They are hands seperately at this level and the examiner will ask her to play with either left or right hand. Some of my students learn very well with the right hand and neglect the left. Also encourage her to listen carefully to the instruction given. If the examiner asks her to play a scale in her left hand, and she uses her right, she may get penalised for that.

Good luck with it!

Yes, I can confirm that DC is correct - my students play both ways in lessons but usually choose which way they prefer.

Thank you for those replies, that's very reassuring. I think I'm correct in saying that the down/up option is only available for Grade 1 (?).

My daughter has already taught herself everything for the right hand, scales, broken chords, arpeggios, etc.

She's starting on the left hand this weekend, apparently . . . .

Yes - it's only for grade one. (From grade 2 of course you play the odd contrary motion scale which utilises the LH down start. )

One point which sometimes needs clarification with my pupils at this grade (although I'm sure if your daughter is teaching herself she's ahead of this one) is that arpeggios must start from the bottom note. I've had a few pupils who, because they played scales starting from the top, thought that arpeggios could do the same, and this needs to be sorted early on - otherwise they can easily invert the arpeggio pattern and play C major as CAFC Same applies to broken chords of course.

Hope it goes well.

I played the LH scales the 'wrong' way round for grade 1. I think it made more sense to me at the time to do it that way. No idea why though