Lesson 4 - Learn Your Scales, Play Like a Pro

Learning scales in music is as fundamental as learning the musical alphabet itself. A musician, whether a newbie or a professional, must be familiar with his scales or else he will not be able to either learn his trade, in the case of the former, or perform his work exceptionally well, in the case of the latter.

What are the so-called “scales” in music? Remember that musical notes are named according to the English alphabet starting from letter “A” and proceeding up to the letter “G.” This set of notes is called an octave. Though an octave refers to a set of eight, in this set up you will find only seven, with the eighth note being a repetition of the first note “A” in this instance. This note, thus, will be the start of the next octave, which is at a higher pitch. What you have to remember is that there are only seven notes in an octave, each having differing musical qualities.

We also learned about the middle “C,” which is located at the mid-point of the piano keyboard right in line with the cabinet lock key hole. Any seven white keynotes that start on this key and move to your right will constitute an octave, as will the notes of the musical scale of the note ‘C,” also known as “C” major. Note that this scale is the only one that can be played using white keys alone.

Of the adjoining key, representing the musical note “D,” or “D major,” one cannot play these in line on the keyboard while using white keys only. You will realize that, as you play on, one or more keys do not produce the familiar scale sounds. This, in fact, will happen in all cases, except in the “C” scale. It, therefore, becomes necessary to use one or more black keys to play the octave correctly.

As a beginner, you would now realize that playing the notes on the “C” scale is much easier as you start to familiarize with the scales. Accordingly, the scale on key “C major” is the most popular among music lovers.
However, those who have tried to sing songs on the key “C”, when backed by instruments being played in that scale, know that Mr. Joe Average cannot sing proficiently in this key due to the high pitch of the notes. It is much easier for the general singer, as well as the amateur, to sing in a key such as “E,””D,” or “A.”

It is a fact that sometimes music played on other keys produce more pleasing tones. But it would be impossible for accompanists to create various tones if they only know the white key scale “C.” One will, therefore, need to learn the musical scales thoroughly, which will involve playing the black keys as well.

As you are now aware, the black keys represent “sharp” notes or “flat” notes. In an octave you will actually find 12 notes, not 7. These extra notes are the black ones, which are said to be spaced a “half step” (or the “half note” or a “semitone”) away from the principal note.

So you find in general a black key spaced a “half step” from any of the white key notes on either side of it. These black keys are named either as a flat note or a sharp note, relative to the white key note adjacent to it.
If the black note is on the right side of the white key, it is called a “sharp” note of the white key. So if you consider the whole note “D” (which is to the right of middle “C”), the black key on the left of it is “D” flat while that on the right is “D” sharp.

Just a second, you may have noticed that if the aforementioned is true then the same “D” flat is on to the right of the Middle “C” key, isn’t it? It should then be “C” sharp!

Yes, that is correct.

Before learning and practicing the scales, one thing you have to memorize is where the fingers should go on the keyboard. An easy way to master finger usage is to assign a number to each of the fingers. The thumb is no.1, the index finger no. 2, and so on.

When positioning your fingers on the keyboard, place both thumbs on the middle C. Try this and feel how the fingers 1 to 5 raise the notes higher, and the same done with the left lowering the notes. When you play the white keys from middle “C,” or any “C “ note above or below (in the keyboard) up to the next “C,” you are playing the scale of “C.” However, when you change the scale to another, say for example, scale in F major, your scale will not sound right as long as you use only the white keys. Change the white key “B” to “B flat” and you will find everything starts to sound right and pleasant.

A helpful tip to remember is that a tune using the notes of the scale F major is said to be in the key of “F.” Also bear in mind that the key signature which you find marked at the beginning of the stave is “B” flat, because here the white key “B” is replaced by the black key B flat. Similarly, in the case of scale “G major,” the F needs to be replaced to get the scale right. The replacement is “F sharp.” Therefore, for all tunes played on the key F major, the key signature is “F sharp.” You don’t call this black key “G Flat” because it is not a replacement for “G” in the scale.

What we have seen so far are the scales of major keys. What about the minor scales?

A minor scale is said to be a variation of the major scale, having a lower or altered 3rd, 6th, and 7th scale degrees. Confusing? Don’t worry! If you learn and practice the major scales, the minor scales can be easily mastered.

It is not easy to play and practice these scales without proper music sheets. You have actually two options. You can either make your own music sheets, with proper notation representing each key while marking out each finger that should be used on each key, or you can go for the no-fuss alternative --- buy your music sheets.

Creating your own music sheet is tedious and can sometimes be frustrating. It requires a lot of patience before you get the feel of it. But this is highly recommended especially for beginners because this technique will help you to practice the basic musical notations. On the other hand, if you are looking for a shortcut to learn the scales, by all means purchase ready-made music sheets. However, you will still be required to practice hard; otherwise, you will certainly not progress as you would like to.