How to practice Octaves without being bored
Clip from Performance & Practice, Episode #1.
The below text is a partial transcript of the video.
This video addresses the technical problem of playing octaves, which represents for piano players always a challenge. I will show you how I practice octaves: you play an ascending C major scale and then come back with the descending D flat major scale. Then go up with the D major scale, then you come down with the E flat major scale, and so on. Playing the scales like this is rhythmically perfect because it fits nicely in bars of 4/4. Play this same pattern in octaves with both hands.
You can start very slowly and then increase the tempo little by little. Try to keep your wrists a little flexible - don't get tense. Start practicing these octaves very slowly and very softly.
Also, you can experiment with different degrees of touch. Use just fingers, so you're doing almost a pizzicato effect with the fingers on the keys. Or use wrist action, or use arm action.
In the book of Hanon, "Il pianista virtuoso," there is an exercise to practice octaves, but only on white keys. It starts by repeating the same note, then goes up the scale, first to the fifth, and then by always adding one note, and so the interval would get wider. So from C to G, then from C to A, C to B, C to C, until you cover two octaves. That might help to create some endurance, but I think it's a little boring.
I think it's much more fun to practice octaves in the way I just showed you, going up with one key and coming down with another key half a step away. That is more challenging and interesting and also teaches you the coordination movement of moving in and out of the keyboard when you switch back and forth from the black keys to the white keys. When you play a black key, you have to go in the keyboard, and when you play a white key, you have to come back. That's an important coordination movement in octave playing that you can practice with this exercise.
I hope you appreciate these kind of suggestions. I'm sharing things with you that were good for me.