Why Scales and Arpeggios Matter

Lately, I have renewed interest in scales and arpeggios. Why? I have 3 reasons...

First, I realized that I have never met a great player who could not play an awesome scale and arpeggio. When a great player plays a scale it sounds clean, fast, and most importantly musical. To me, the key to make arpeggios and scales to sound musical.

Second, when looking at playing pretty much any song in any style, 90% of time we are either playing some form of scale or arpeggio. Just take a look at the Bach music such as the excerpt from Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring below. As you can see, Bach's music moves between scales and arpeggios.

Bach's Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring is a good example of scales and arpeggios in music.

Third, as a rule of thumb, if you want to improve then work on the things you do not want to work on. By default, we love to practice the things we love to do. We love to do them because we are good at them. Lately, I have been asking myself, "what do I not want to practice?" Then, I spend some time practicing that. 

What type of practicing have you been avoiding?