Piano Scales - Essential Building Blocks of Music
Piano scales are essential building blocks in music. You
will devote a good deal of your time and effort to learning
and playing them.
On following pages I will show you a useful overview, give
you an overview of major scales as well as some important
beginner exercises.
Students of all levels
endlessly complain about piano scales. And I agree, playing
a scale is not the most exciting part of mastering your
instrument.
But one thing is certain: the scales will
progress right along with your skills, but you will always
play some if for nothing other than an excellent warm up or
workout for your fingers.
In case you belong to the
category of those who have hardly touched a piano or never
had a teacher, you should know some
theory. Don't worry, I won't make it more complicated
than necessary!
Let's first answer the most important
of all questions:
What is a scale?
In music it's a
collection of notes that belong together and are used to
create melodies and harmonic variation.
These notes
are ordered in pitch or pitch class. As such they provide a
measure of musical distance (whole
tone or whole-step (WS)
or semitone or half-step
(HS)). A scale step is the distance between two
successive notes.
There are many different types of piano scales, some with
five notes (pentatonic
scale - popular in blues music), six notes (whole tone)
and twelve notes (chromatic
- widely used in modern
jazz).
The
most commonly used in Western music are diatonic scales.
A diatonic scale has seven notes: five whole-tone and two
half-tone (or
semi-tone) steps. The half steps are
maximally separated. This means that there are two or three
whole-steps between each of the two half-tone steps. The
pattern repeats at the octave.
The keyboard of a
piano (as well as an organ, electronic keyboard etc.) is
diatonic, with black keys grouped in twos and threes.
A
major scale is also diatonic. The steps in a major scale are:
- whole-step
- whole-step
- half-step
- whole-step
- whole-step
- whole-step
- half-step
Use this formula and the notes of the C major scale are:
All 12 Major Scales
Natural
minor scales are also commonly used. Here the
steps are:
- whole-step
- half-step
- whole-step
-
whole-step
- half-step
- whole-step
-
whole-step
Use this and the notes of a C
natural minor are:
C-D-Eb-F-G-Ab-Bb-C.
Other important piano
scales every beginner should master are
melodic minor
and harmonic minor
scales. No doubt you will get acquainted one day!
Let's stop here now. You will get a better understanding
when you're playing and hear the difference. However, not
only your ears count.
Proper
fingering of piano scales
is equally important if you want to develop your
skills and improve as a pianist. But that's another story.
Interested in all Seven
Modes of Music?
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