Easy Piano Lessons

There are dozens of piano scales in music. There are major, minor, pentatonic and a whole lot more. There are four important piano scales that every piano player should learn. This article will tell you what those scales are and how to play them.

Half Steps/Whole Steps

To learn how to play piano scales, you must first understand half and whole steps. A half-step is the distance from one note to the very next note. For example, the distance between E and F is a half step. The distance from F to F# is a half step. A whole step is simply two half steps combined. The distances from C to D and G to A are whole steps. In learning how to play the scales, we will refer to half steps with an H and whole steps will be referred to as a W.

Major

Major piano scales are the most common type of scales used in Western music. To play a major scale, you simply start on the root note and use the following formula: W-W-H-W-W-W-H. Using this formula, you will find that the notes of the C major scale are C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C. The notes of the F major scale are F-G-A-Bb-C-D-E-F. You can use this formula to find the major scale of any key.

Natural Minor

Natural minor scales are also the most commonly used piano scales. To play a natural minor scale, you start on the root note and use the formula: W-H-W-W-H-W-W. Using this formula, you will see that the notes of the C natural minor scale are C-D-Eb-F-G-Ab-Bb-C. The notes of the F natural minor scale are F-G-Ab-Bb-C-Db-Eb-F.

Melodic Minor

The next set of piano scales to learn is the melodic minor scales. To play a melodic minor scale, you begin on the root note and use the following formula: W-H-W-W-W-W-H. By using the formula, you will see that the notes of the C melodic minor scale are C-D-Eb-F-G-A-B-C. The notes that make up the F melodic minor scale are F-G-Ab-Bb-C-D-E-F.

Harmonic Minor

The last set of piano scales that everyone should know is the harmonic minor scale. The only difference between the harmonic minor and the melodic minor scale is the sixth note. Instead of going up 1 whole step from the fifth note, you are supposed to go up 1 1/2 whole steps (3 half steps). Therefore, the notes that make up the C harmonic minor scale are C-D-Eb-F-G-Ab-B-C. The F harmonic minor scale is made up of F-G-Ab-Bb-C-Db-E-F.

These are the most important piano scales to learn. You should pick a key and learn all four scales before moving on to the next key. Soon, you will be able to play all of the piano scales quickly and easily.

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The minor scale is a simple pattern of whole tones and half tones that must be followed when we play from any key. If we wanted to play say the A minor scale we would just hit all the white keys starting from an A key up to the next A key. If only it was that simple.

The process of pressing all the white keys from A to the next A is just the natural minor in A. There exists other types of minor scales such as harmonic and melodic. I find that melodic is the hardest of the three.

Expanding upon what is a whole tone and half tone, I can make it a little more clearer. A half tone is when we play from one key to the next. There are usually 88 keys on the keyboard and they are black or white. If for instance we hit the C key and then play C#/Bb we have played a half tone. It is quite simple. A whole tone is just two half tones. A whole tone is like playing from C to the next D key.

Now that we have understood what tones are, I will explain to you the patterns that we must learn when we learn how to play piano. The patterns are as such:

Natural Minor: W, H, W, W, H, W, W
Harmonic Minor: W, H, W, W, H, W, H
Melodic Minor: W, H, W, W, W, W, H

I have denoted a whole tone as W and a half tone as H.

Going into a little detail a harmonic minor is similar to a natural minor but the seventh note is raised by a half tone. In the case of a melodic minor the sixth and seventh tones of a natural minor are raised by half a tone. There is a slight twist in the melodic minor in that we play the minor naturally on the way down the scale. Only on the way up do we follow the pattern of W, H, W, W, W, W, H.

In the case of a melodic, we can think of it as two tetrachords with whole tone in the middle.

Minor tetrachord: whole tone, half tone and whole tone
Major tetrachord: whole, whole and then half

When we first learn how to play scales in minor I suggest we learn the natural pattern first. After we have mastered that we learn the harmonic and then the melodic last. Remember that the key to playing the scales is loads of practise. Practise it for an hour or so a day and get used to the pattern. You need to commit the patterns to memory and hopefully get them into our muscle memory.

Learning how to play piano requires us to start small and build our skills up till we get to a point where we can play a whole piano piece. I recommend that people use a metronome when playing the scales. A metronome helps you keep the correct tempo as you play the scales. A key mistake that lot of beginners make is playing at the wrong tempo or a mixed tempo.

Mastering the major and minor scales is necessary before we move on to playing chords. I believe that chords will come naturally once we know our scales properly. There is no substitute for practise. The key to being a successful piano player is to practise. Throw in a few hours of practise when you can and touch up on your scales.

In conclusion, the theory behind minor scales has been discussed in detail in this article. We have learnt all about the three types of scales in minor. The major scale is a lot easier than the minor one. We should first learn the major scale and then move on to learning the minor.

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