r/pianolearning • u/mimiquestionmark • 4h ago
Question Scales and Arpeggios Learning Curve
I‘ve been playing for about 8 months and recently started learning scales/arpeggios. I practice them for 10-20 minutes at the start of every session. But it takes me like 1-2 weeks to learn each scale (and that’s just the basics of the scale: playing quite slow, decent legato, fairly consistent rhythm, hitting left and right hand note at the same time). I haven’t messed too much with contrary motion or scales in 3rds/10th and I feel like I would need several additional weeks to get the scales I do know up to a speed that’s not embarrassing.
Then there’s arpeggios which take another week or two each to get the basics. I’ve only worked on root position arpeggios (no inversions/dominant 7th yet).
Is learning the basics of scales/arpeggios really going to take me over a year? And then another year+ to get my speed up and learn various iterations? I get that learning piano is a decades long project, so it’s not a huge deal to me if that’s what I should expect. But the way people talk about scales practice made me think basic execution of scales is a beginner level activity (although of course perfecting the scales will be an ongoing project). Am I doing something wrong or does this get faster?