Scale Piano Pdf

2 views

Skip to first unread message

Mellissa Sprock

unread,

Aug 3, 2024, 4:38:58 PM8/3/24

to CDAP Developer

Major scales are the most important piano scales: firstly, because they are very common and, secondly, because they are fundamental to understand keys. If you hear someone mention that a piano sonata by the composer and pianist Franz Schubert is played in A Major, it means that it depends on the A Scale.

You can scroll down and see keyboard images all Major scales. Further down, you will see an overview with all the notes together with intervals, semi-tones and the formula of the Major Scale. This theory helps you learn the concepts and memorizing it easier. See also Major scales exercises and arpeggios.

This hi-res digital poster includes all Major scales, but also all Minor scales together with major and minor chords.
Diagrams and note letters are visible.
The digital poster is in pdf A3 format.

See Printable scales - digital posters for more info

As soon as you know a certain major scale, you can easier grasp the chords in the same key. That is because you can randomly choose three different notes from a scale and you will get a triad. In the key of C, for instance, the standard chords being used are:

I have been searching in the manual and in this forum for a way to restict the piano roll so I can only enter notes in the selected scale. There really must be a way to do this. I guess I just have not found the right button to press, right?

I have seen a few threads asking for the selected notes to light up in the piano roll and false notes to be silenced in very old feature request threads (2012) so I guess you must have added this way back.

To do any of this you need to add a Chord Track and put scale and/or chord symbols on it. Now if you are in the Key Editor you can set the Event Color to be the Chord Track instead of the default Velocity. Now the note colors will indicate if it is in the scale but not the cord, in the chord but not the scale, in both the chord and scale, or not in either.

The fundamental scales every piano player should know are the major and minor scales. Pianists who want to play rock, blues, pop, and jazz should also learn the pentatonic and blues scales. Finally, jazz uses even more scales, such as modes, bebop scales, and whole tone scales.

Piano scales also help piano players improvise! For example, you can use any note from the C major scale to improvise on top of a chord progression in C major. Blues and pentatonic scales are also popular tools to improvise with.

The notes of a scale are called scale degrees. Major scales have seven degrees and they each have a name: tonic, supertonic, mediant, subdominant, dominant, submediant, and leading tone. You may hear scale degrees and degree names mentioned when musicians talk about diatonic chords.

The harmonic minor scale follows the key signature of the relative major key and raises the seventh note of the scale one half-step. For example, the seventh note of D minor, C, is raised to C-sharp. Here are all the harmonic minor scales in all 12 keys:

The melodic minor scale follows the key signature of its relative major key and raises the sixth and seventh notes of the scale one half-step when ascending. Then, the sixth and seventh notes of the scale are lowered back down when descending. Here are all the melodic minor scales in all 12 keys:

By now, you should be comfortable with major scales. Did you know that there are seven ways to play one major scale? We can do this by starting and ending on each of the seven degrees of the major scale. These are called modes. For example, playing the C major scale starting and ending on D gives us the D Dorian mode.

This scale has a strange, ambiguous sound that is quite unique. In classical music, late 19th century composers like Claude Debussy used the whole tone sound to convey dreamy atmospheres. Whole tone scales are also popular in jazz.

Playing 5-finger scales has significant value for early-level pianists. This innovative book helps students chart progress through all major and minor 5-finger scales, cross-hand arpeggios, and primary chords. Engaging teacher duets for each key are used for scale exercises. Students also enjoy improvisation activities for each key with creative prompts to inspire imagery, character, and tempo.

Piano scales are incredibly valuable tools for any pianist, from the newest beginner to the most seasoned professional. They provide the technical and theoretical building blocks that will help you understand the patterns that comprise any style of Western music.

The Natural Minor scale retains the notes of the key signature. This version is mostly used for theory purposes and you will rarely see it used in actual music. This is because it lacks a leading tone (half-step below the root) making it lack a sense of direction and resolution. The interval pattern of the natural minor scale is: W-H-W-W-H-W-W.

Whole tone scales, as their name implies, consist entirely of whole steps and are devoid of any half-step leading motion. This makes them sound very open and are great for conveying different atmospheric effects on the piano.

Modes, sometimes known as church modes, have their roots in the middle ages, but are most commonly used today in pop, rock, and jazz contexts. Two of the modes, Ioanian, and Aeolean, became what we know today as Major and Minor respectively.

Edit: To be clear I'm not asking if I should stick to scale fingering religiously, More if I should be using the hand positions (1 on C or F) primarily and veering with individual fingers when necessary, or if they're just a crutch and I should just let go of the scale hand positions entirely unless I'm actually playing part of a scale.

When sight-reading, your long-term goal should be learning to read and play entire phrases of music, not individual notes. What fingering choice is practical for a specific note might be completely different depending on the phrase. For example:

As far as I can see, a scale fingering is made so that you can play the scale as a "phrase". Use that fingering pattern where it makes sense. :) Your piano teacher and books can probably give more concrete guidelines, but I think you'll learn which fingerings work and which don't for different phrases, when you sight-read a lot.

The point is that you should select your fingerings so that the end-result is musically meaningful. Your hand and finger movements should be fluent and not create unnecessary gaps and discontinuities at places where it's not musically sensible. If you think that the music is a poem or a paragraph of text, you should place your punctuation in the right spots. Not between, the wrongwordsbecause, itdoes not, makesen, smusical, ly.

From your question, and the subsequent edits, it is clear you have no idea how fingering on the piano works. I think you have the impression like many beginners do that piano playing starts from a fixed five finger position (like 'C-position' or 'G-position') and then veers out of that.

In reality, in most piano-music (that is a bit more complicated than absolute beginner repertoire), it is not like that. There are no real rules: any finger can be used on every pianokey, you just have to choose the fingers that:

BUT, the app, or even only sightreading in general, is not very useful, maybe even counterproductive, to learn actual fingering (or making music out of sheet music). I would recommend using a lot of repertoire at or below you level to learn that (like method books or beginner repertoire collections). The essential fingerings will be indicated, you will have to 'fill in' (with pencil in the score or only in your head) the rest of the fingerings. You learn a lot doing this.

So, although it's comforting at the moment to do what works for you, very soon, it will trip you up. Often, lines of music spread out wider than the 5 fingers you use, and crossing like you do for a scale just won't be convenient. Better to keep your fingers over enough notes that there's little lateral movement required, but get used to stretching past those points when you have to.read ahead, and try to ascertain where a good placing for the whole hand would be for the next phrase or so.Sometimes the finger will stretch past the 5 notes you're over, sometimes they'll need to squash right up.

But don't stick with the scale fingering idea - it doesn't work - for most players. As a simple example to sway you - imagine playing a run C D E F G F E D C. Right hand. Would you really swap thumb onto that F, play G with index, then flick over your middle finger to play the E again?

EDIT: even if you are playing part of a scale, there's no need to actually use those specific fingers as you would in the scale itself. it depends more on where you came from and where you're going. it may be appropriate, more likely not. Instead, just get used to the fact that scale fingerings are for scales, and other fingerings (and that's part of the fun of learning) are what they are at the point in the music. Eventually, it'll happen spontaneously, but at other points, you'll have to stop and work out, finger by finger, what's best for you and your hands with the music at that time. After 60+ yrs, I still have to dissect what happens sometimes. Each piece has its own challenges!

If you train sight reading as you're describing above you can play all that stuff only with your index, as the index indicates you were you are, on which key and on which note. And this concentration on your index will help you to be more aware what you are doing and to memorize better where the notes are placed in the staff system.