Why Do You Only Teach Pentascales, Not Full-Octave Scales?

Playing a full octave scale (do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do) requires a more advanced fingering (with finger “crossing” and “thumb under”) which we prefer to save for later in a student’s development. It is important to establish a good technique and hand posture from the beginning, so we spend a lot of time with pentascales so students can get comfortable using all 5 fingers in a basic pentascale position before we add new fingering challenges. Units 1-8 focus on pentascales, Units 9 and beyond will begin to train students in full-octave scales.