Discover Basic Scales for a Beginner to Master on the Piano

Scales that are great for beginners to learn are contrary motion scales. These are the best ones for a beginner, as your fingers are changing at the same time. With most major and minor scales with a few exceptions, there is a fingering pattern that they follow.

Below is an example of the fingering for a contrary motion scale: -

The fingering for your right hand is: -

Ascending: - 123/1234/123/12345

Descending: - 54321/321/4321/321

Left Hand

Descending: - 123/1234/123/12345

Ascending: - 54321/321/4321/321

Can you see the connection - So when doing a contrary motion scale your fingering changes are at the same time. A good way of memorizing this to help you learn it is to say the fingering as you are playing it.

This is how a 2 octave C Major Contrary Motion Scale looks: -

RIGHT HAND ASCENDING

C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C/ B A G F E D C B A G F E D C

1 2 3 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 3 2 1 4 3 2 1 3 2 1 (Fingering)

LEFT HAND DESCENDING

C B A G F E D C B A G F E D C/ D E F G A B C D E F G A B C

1 2 3 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 3 2 1 4 3 2 1 3 2 1 (Fingering)

So as you can see this is a great scale to start off with, and it will really help improve your technique for your fingering and co-ordination. Once you are happy with this, try moving on to C Major Ascending Scale. Get yourself a scale book, and you will be able to see how this works. The notes are the same as the Contrary motion scale, but your hands start two octaves apart, so your right hand starts on Middle C, and your left hand on the C two octaves below middle C.

Once you have learnt C Major Contrary Motion, and C Major Ascending Scale, why not try out C Major Arpeggio, and C Major Broken Chord. These can all be found in the ABRSM Scales Arpeggios and Broken Chord books. Get yourself a system going, so you cover all the different types of scales. It is crucial for your development on piano to learn some kind of scales. They really do train you to use the correct technique, and get you into good habits. When you go to buy some piano books don't forget your scale books.

You can sometimes find scales on the internet to download for free so take a look and find some for yourself. Use them as your warm up exercise before playing your music.

There are some great free courses to teach anyone from complete beginners to advanced pianists to Learn How to Play Piano.
A great way for beginners to learn is to start off with some really Easy Piano Songs which will get you started and help build that all important confidence.

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Circle Of 4ths and 5ths - Major Scales And Key Signatures

The circle of 4ths and 5ths has many applications when learning music theory. Some of the most useful are knowing how to find out the notes of each Major scale and finding and recognising key signatures for each key.

The term 'key' refers to a starting note, also known as the root or tonic of a chord progression and the term 'key signature' refers to how many sharp or flat notes are in each key. This is then noted on the musical staff so that we can at an instant see in which key we are meant to be playing. But even if you don't want to read music notation it is still useful to understand key signatures.

But first lets find out how to determine the notes of the Major scale in each key. Lets start with the key of C at the 12 o'clock position at the top of the circle of 4ths and 5ths. It is based on the C Major scale which is C, D, E, F, G, A, B. As you can see it has no sharp or flat notes. The next key clockwise along the circle is G (a perfect 5th along from C and also the 5th note of the C Major scale). The G Major scale is G, A, B, C, D, E, F#. As you can see we just start using the same note names as the C Major scale in the same order except for two things: we start with G and make the last note a sharp.

So how do we find the next Major scale? Well the 5th note of the G Major scale is D, so we name the same notes from there on but make the last note sharp, like this: D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#. There are now two sharps in the scale. If you keep going along like this around the circle of 4ths and 5ths you'll add another sharp each time until you get to the key of F#/Gb which contains 6 sharp notes. From here on the convention is to name the notes as flats rather than sharps and you'll find that each key signature has 1 less flat note until you get back to the key of C which has not sharps or flats.

So the key signature that you see on the left side of the musical staff is basically a certain amount of b's (flats) or #'s (sharps). If there are 3 #'s you know it is the key of A. If there are 5 b's then it's the key of Db.

To see what the circle of 4ths and 5ths looks like check out this diagram: circle of 4ths and 5ths. If you want to see just what else you can do with it then download the free e-book "Hit Song Secrets" in which I show you some amazing tricks that include helping you figure out songs by ear or write your own hit songs using the circle of 4ths and 5ths.

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