Constant improvement of the piano technique is one of the basic elements of piano education. We are often asked, especially by the youngest students, why they need to practice scales and arpeggios every day. It is worth quoting the words of one of the greatest pianists of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries - Sergey Rachmaninoff, who said that the mere ability to play several songs does not prejudge "musical proficiency".

We learn from Rachmaninoff's account that an exam in the Russian music education system (in his time) was organized after the fifth year of study (for nine years of the course). It consisted of two parts: the first tested technical proficiency, and the second the artistic performance of pieces, etudes, etc. However, if the student failed the technical part, he could not take the next stage of the exam.
During the first five years of study, students developed their technical skills primarily in Hanon exercises. „The Virtuoso Pianist in 60 Exercises” are exercises based on scales, arpeggios and other technical problems by Charles-Louis Hanon (1819-1900). All written in the key of C major. Sergei Rachmaninoff mentions that the students knew them by heart along with their numbering, and it was enough to ask them to do the exercise at the exam by indicating the specific number and the students knew exactly which exercise they were talking about. The fact that the exercises were written only in the key of C major did not mean that they were performed only in that key. During the exam, students were asked to perform a specific exercise in the key and tempo given by the Jury, which was determined using the metronome.
As an example of the exam task, Rachmaninoff gives the following:
play the E flat major scale at 120, eight notes per beat.