Interval Exercise

by Paul T. Smith

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This exercise was written with the idea of getting away from the constant scale patterns of typical technique exercises. No fingering is indicated, allowing you to use whatever fingering is comfortable for you. Most of the fingering is obvious, since there are usually only one or two ways that it is practical to finger a passage so just find the most comfortable way for you and stick to it.

Having a proficient left hand is something that should be worked on diligently. A suggestion is to play the exercise with the left hand playing much louder than the right. Usually the left hand just "goes along for the ride" and the right hand plays aggressively. Try reversing that procedure by accenting the left hand and letting the right hand follow along, for a change. It's also a very interesting procedure to just let the right hand "pretend to play" while the left hand is digging in. In other words, just touch the keys with the right hand so it seems to be playing the figures while the left hand is actually accentuating the figures.

Play this exercise in all keys. Play it slowly at first, until you are able to play it at the indicated tempo. The example at the end shows how you might use this pattern to improvise over a chord progression.