<![CDATA[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.

e minor staccato

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.”

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