piano lessons: PLAYING MAJOR SCALES

How to practice the 12 scales on the piano.

Well in order to play them fairly fast, you have to learn the standard fingering, and they are as follows:

Let

· 1=thumb

· 2=index finger

· 3=middle finger

· 4=ring finger

· 5=pinky

· 6=sorry, I’m just pulling your leg!

FOR THE RIGHT HAND;

SCALE OF :	PLAY USING THIS FINGERING
C,D,E,G,A,B	1-2-3-1-2-3-4-5
F	1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4
Bb	2-1-2-3-1-2-3-4
Eb	2-1-2-3-4-1-2-3
Ab	2-3-1-2-3-1-2-3
Db	2-3-1-2-3-4-1-2
B	2-3-4-1-2-3-1-2

AND FOR THE DARING, TRY THE LEFT HAND ALSO:

SCALE OF :	PLAY USING THIS FINGERING
C,D,E,G,A	5-4-3-2-1-3-2-1
Bb,Eb,Ab,Db	3-2-1-4-3-2-1-3
Gb	4-3-2-1-3-2-1-2
B	4-3-2-1-4-3-2-1

When practicing your scales on the piano, practice with a metronome or a drum beat. Many keyboards have built-in drum kits. Start with a slow tempo that you are comfortable with. In my case, I play, for example, the scales with a tempo of 80 beats per minute today (BPM), the following day I would play the scale with a tempo of 81 and so forth. Make sure that you are accurate and even in your playing.

How to Form Minor Scales on piano

Well, that’s a peace of cake!

Let’s use the major key of C as an example:

Go to the sixth degree, there you will find the A.

The Aminor scale is the C major scale but starting on the 6^th, it uses the same notes, therefore the Am scale= A B C D E F G A (C major scale rearranged).

Now you may ask, where am going with this?

Well let’s do 2 examples,

Let’s say someone asked you to give them a Bb minor scale, what would you do?

Remember our table of scales, yes, there is nothing new! Just find in which key is Bb a 6^th scale degree on the table. Bb falls on the 6^th scale degree in the key of Bb, therefore you would use the notes of the Db major scale to find the Bb minor scale which is:

Now, the Bb minor scale would use these notes but starting on the sixth, i.e.:

Bb C Db Eb F Gb Ab.

Congratulations for reaching this point!

I have spent a lot of time explaining piano SCALES. Once you master this concept of scales, learning to play the piano becomes easy, the only ingredient needed to succeed, would be your time, passion and patience.

Make sure you don’t do to the next section without understanding scales and knowing your scale degrees. It wouldn’t hurt to go through this section once again for the whole concept of scales to sink in.

Note: you don’t have to play your scales like a Mozart before you move to the next section; the most important thing is that you understand this concept of scales. You will master playing scales fast on your piano as you continue to practice.

SUMMARY:

1. There are 12 major and minor scales

2. There are 8 notes in each scale

3. RULE for forming major scales is this: when moving from the 3^rd degree going the 4^th and when moving from the 7^th going to the 8^th, you only move 1 half step, for the rest of the notes in that scale; you only move 2 half steps/whole steps between them.