MUSICAL SCALES
Why bother practicing musical scales?
There are two main reasons for learning and practicing the musical scales. One is to practice finger dexterity; the other is to learn the keys. Dexterity means finger swiftness and accuracy. Good musicians, whether pop, jazz or classical, practice playing up and down the notes of their instruments quickly and evenly so that they can play the notes they want when they want. Playing scales is one way of doing this. But practicing scales has another benefit. Playing scales is part of learning the keys. Efficient, conscious scale practice accustoms the musician to the ‘look and feel’ of the advanced keys – and knowing the keys is essential if you want to be a ‘really useful musician'. Musicarta can show you ways of learning and practicing scales efficiently, so you won’t spend hours slogging mechanically through the scales without getting what’s useful to you as a musician out of it from the word go. If you are coming back to the piano later in life, Musicarta’s new and scientific approach will show what it was you were learning in your early lessons, and help you reap the benefit of the hours you invested. If you’re a young(ish) Musicarta fan and either really hate scales or ‘just can’t see the point’, try letting Musicarta’s fresh approach persuade you to look again. Nearly every proficient musician, popular or classical, will admit, in the end, that scale work is an essential part of a rounded musical foundation.
This is a Musicarta.com web page. Musicarta is a collection of free, creative online piano lessons for pianists and keyboard players of all ages and stages. The principal aim of Musicarta is to teach 'music theory that works' and introduce you to the wonderful pastime of 'messing about at the keyboard'. If you're new to Musicarta, visit the Musicarta home page for an introduction to the Musicarta way of doing things and an overview of what's available. Then use the the universal navbar on the left of your screen to access the home pages of the various sections and projects. Musicarta recommends all visitors who are serious about making progress start with The Pyramid Variations, our flagship series of lessons, which builds up from an elementary 'Basic Music-making Position' to an impressive Concert Performance in just eight graded steps. Click straight through to The Pyramids Variations home page if you want to jump-start your journey!
Elements of Musicarta scale work
Your scales work should include elements of all the following skills areas.
An octave is made up of twelve semitone steps, but the major scale (and its resulting key) is made from just seven steps. It follows that not all the steps in the major scale are the same size – some are whole tones and some are semitones.This is why we need key signatures – the collections of sharps or flats which tell the pianist which black keys to use and which white keys to avoid in order to play in a given key. Getting an overview of key signatures will: - Help the adult re-starter understand why they spent all that time learning scales, and make the leap from playing the dots to calling the tune; and
- Motivate and encourage pupils following the time-worn path of scales practice by giving them an ‘aerial view’ of the seemingly endless territory they’re traversing.
The scale fingering diagram and explanation
Classical piano pupils spend many hours learning scales for exams, and remembering the fingering of the scales is a large part of their workload. What is not generally known or taught is that the twelve major scales fall into four distinct fingering groups. Once you understand this, you’re ‘oriented’, and working within a known bigger picture rather than learning fingering in a tedious, scale by scale, way. This is a far more efficient way of working – you end up knowing your scales more quickly and for less effort.
Scale fingering practice patterns
Playing scales involves turning the thumb under and passing the fingers over. Just where in the scale this happens is often an unresolved source of confusion for pupils. Musicarta scale fingering practice patterns addresses this issue head on and short-circuit hours of trial-and-error frustration.Click through to your first Musicarta scale fingering pattern here and see how it quickly it improves your scale performance and knowledge of keys. A second useful and effective scale fingering practice pattern (for two-octave scales) is also now online.
Scale practice patterns: Rhythm and contour
Scales are often practiced and played without any rhythm at all, but a rhythm provides great motivation for the player to ‘bring the notes in on time’. Practice patterns with specific up-and-down contours have the same effect. Musicarta’s collection of new and challenging and fun practice techniques will liven up your practice and double the benefit of time spent on scales.
Scale-tone practice patterns for improvisation
Pure scale passages almost never appear in popular music. Repeated, overlapping scale fragments are, however, a major component of soloing. Musicarta’s collection of scale practice patterns offers the improvising musician a new approach to dexterity and an introduction to the vital matter of ‘improvisation fingering’.
Pentatonic scales are extremely useful, both for creating melodies and for improvising. Practising pentatonic scales is almost like practising music – blues and heavy metal riffs are drawn almost note for note from the pentatonic minor scale, while the pentatonic major is the rock music jamming scale par excellence.See the separate ‘PENTATONICS’ navigation bar tab for the Musicarta Pentatonic Scales covering page.
Minor scales (and keys) present distinct challenges. In Western classical music, there are two minor scales, melodic and harmonic, the first used principally in the melody and the second to generate the chords of a minor key. A great deal of minor-feel popular music, however, is modal (you can access Musicarta’s extensive coverage of modal music via the MODES tab on the navbar, left), or is blues-oriented and built on the minor pentatonic scale (see PENTATONICS, left).
We hope you have found your visit to Musicarta's Scales home page interesting. Scales are underestimated (particularly by pupils!) as a creative building block. If you do no other practice in any one day other than playing scales for a few minutes - consciously, with attention, and in a creative way, you will have kept the spirit alive and banked some 'musical merit' which is sure to mature at a later date.
Thank-you for visiting Musicarta.com! Come again soon!
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