Am I Wasting My Time Practicing Piano Scales?

Duane: Good morning this is Duane and I want to ask you a question. Am I Wasting My Time Practicing Piano Scales? Why should you learn scales? Piano teachers teach scales as part of piano lessons. Is that really necessary? It’s necessary for a couple of reasons. The reason I’d like to talk about today is that you understand what it means to play in a certain key. For example the key of C is based on the scale of C. The word scale comes from the Latin La Scala which means a ladder.

We have a ladder of notes that runs from one C up to another C. When I play in the key of C, I’m playing my : I’m basing my playing on that scale of C and the chords that I used are based on the scale of C. The most used chords in the key of C are C, F and G. That’s the one chord, the four-chord and the five-chord. It’s called a one chord because it’s built on the first degree of the scale. It’s called the four-chord because it’s built on the fourth degree of the scale. It’s called the five-chord because it’s built on the fifth degree of the scale.

There is other reasons to learn scales too such as technique. In other words you want to learn how to turn : if you only have fingers and here’s eight notes in the scale so when you’re playing a passage of music, it’s helpful to know where you should turn your thumb. You usually turn under your third finger. For example, the key of C is I’m tucking my thumb under that, I don’t know if you can see that but my thumb’s over F before I get through playing E. Otherwise you’re running out of fingers, so you got to learn what the fingering is for each scale.

Scale is made up of whole steps and half steps. A whole step is where you skip a key. We’re skipping a key there. We have a whole step and then we have another whole step because we skipped a key and we have a half step and a whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. The formula for major scale is whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. Let’s supply that to some other key.

Instead of starting on C, let’s start on B. We know the formula for major scale is whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole half, so we can’t : that can’t be our second note, cannot, because we have to leave out a note so that’s we go there for the second note of the scale. That’s a whole step.

What’s a whole step above that? There we go. What’s a half step above that? Right there. What’s the whole step above that? That, whole step, whole step, half step. The scale of B uses all the black keys, you see that? When I play in the key of B, the primary chord is the most used chords are the one chord, the four-chord : and the five-chord :

If I play in the key of B flat, I’m basing my playing on the scale of B flat. Let’s figure out what that is. Up from B flat a whole step and C, up from C is a whole step to D then a half step to E flat, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. Notice that when I play the black keys, I use my longer fingers. I don’t use my thumb on a black key because that’s not handy, is it, so I use a long finger on a black key and then I tuck my thumb under for white keys. Long finger : long finger : long finger. You see the logic there. It’s just common sense really once you understand it.

If I play the scale of A, whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step. How many sharps are there in the key of A? One, two, three, so when I play in the key of A, I have those three sharps. Beginning at a line of music if I was playing in the key of A, you’ll see those three sharps; F sharp, C sharp and D sharp. I’m sorry F sharp, C sharp and G sharp.

The key of A flat naturally starts on A flat, goes up a whole step to B flat, whole step to C, a half step to D flat, a whole step to E flat, a whole step to F, a whole step to G and a half step to A flat. The key of A flat has those four flats on it, doesn’t it? A flat, E flat, D flat and E flat, so the key signature would have four flats.

You may wonder why am I calling that A flat? It could be G sharp and you’re absolutely right. We could call that G sharp. If we do then we have to call that A sharp, we have to call that B sharp, C sharp, D sharp, E sharp, G and : actually that would be F double sharp, wouldn’t it, and then G sharp so that’s why we don’t play in the key of G sharp because there’s lot of double sharps and so on, it’s confusing so that’s why I tend to call it the A flat and most everybody else does too.

Let’s quickly run through the remaining scales and then we’re done for the day. The G scale then would be like that, one sharp. The F sharp scale or the G flat scale would be like that : Again, you see the logic of fingering and I’m using my long fingers on the black keys, thumb under long fingers : The key of F then will be like that : with just a one flat.

The key of E would be like that : Key of E flat : would have three flats. Key of D with two sharps. Key of D flat would be five flats right to one of them.

A brief introduction to why you need to know scales. Yeah, you do for fingering but more than that you need to understand because they’re the natural notes that you use in that given key when you’re playing in that key and they form the basis of the chords as well.

That’s it for today. If you enjoy this kind of thing, come on over to play piano and sign up for a free newsletter on chords and chord progressions and all kinds of things related to the piano. We’ll see you there, bye-bye for now.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGwkqItk-pA
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