What is Contrary Motion and why is it important to study it through scales played and heard in bilateral symmetry? In this book, standard scales are presented in contrary motion, i.e. mirror fashion. Readers will be guided through a process in which each scale is to be played simultaneously in opposing directions; as one hand plays the scale ascending, the other hand "mirrors" it, descending in a symmetric pattern.

Playing scales in Bilateral Symmetry is a new and instructive form of ear training in which one not only trains the hands and fingers to behave in a certain way, but at the same time becomes aware of the consonances, dissonances and tensions, pulling the notes of the scale in this way and that; ways that are not always harmonious, but infinitely variable, surprising and mysterious.