Download What Exactly Is A Piano Scale

What Exactly Is A Piano Scale?
A piano scale is not something that’s reserved just for the piano – it’s actually a musical
scale that corresponds to all instruments.
A scale is nothing more than a group of notes that act as a kind of foundation for part or all
of a piece of music. It gives the composer a structure from which to build melodies and
harmonies, and it actually helps musicians improvise within a given piece of music. Most
western music is based on one or more of just a few scales, which we’ll talk about here.
The Major Scale
The one piano scale – or music scale – practically everyone knows is the major scale. If
you’ve ever seen “The Sound Of Music,” you’ve heard a major scale – it’s the “DO-RE-MI”
scale.
Most western scales don’t skip any lines or spaces on the music staff, and they don’t
repeat the same note with a different accidental (sharp or flat). This forces the key
signature (the sharps and flats on the staff at the front of a piece of music) to contain just
sharps or just flats.
The C major piano scale is the easiest scale to build and remember – it’s just the white
notes on the piano, beginning on C: C-D-E-F-G-A-B-[C]. That last C is also the beginning
of the scale as it continues on the next octave above the starting C.
If you want to build any major piano scale, you could memorize them all – which is
probably a good idea in the long run – or realize that they all have the same structure.
First, remember that the half step is the smallest distance between keys – black-to-white,
white-to-black, or white-to-white (like E to F). A major scale can be built using the following
whole-/half-step pattern: Start on any note, then go up WHOLE-WHOLE-HALF-WHOLEWHOLE-WHOLE-HALF.
So, looking at the C major scale, starting on C, C to D is a WHOLE step, D to E is a
WHOLE step, E to F is a HALF step, F to G is a WHOLE step, G to A is a WHOLE step, A
to B is a WHOLE step, and B to C is a HALF step. Got it? Good! Now, let’s try another
one.
How about Ab? Ab?! That’s right – piece of cake when you know the pattern: Ab
(WHOLE) Bb (WHOLE) C (HALF) Db (WHOLE) Eb (WHOLE) F (WHOLE) G (HALF) Ab.
How Are Scales Used?
You might have noticed that last scale had 4 flats – Bb, Eb, Ab, and Db – which is exactly
what the key signature for the key of Ab has – 4 flats. Remember how we said that a
piano scale – and any music scale – is the foundation for a piece of music? Well, the key
signature is the way of representing that scale in the written music. So, a piece is said to
be in the key of Ab if its key signature contains 4 flats – Bb, Eb, Ab, and Db – which
means it relies on the Ab major scale. (By the way, the same key signature is used for F
minor, so you’ll need to use your ears also!)
For a piece of music written in a major key, the notes which will sound best in the melody
are the notes of that major scale, and the piece will usually end on either the root (the first
note of the scale) or one of the notes of the major chord (the third note of the scale or the
fifth note of the scale).
When you’re playing a piece of music written in a particular key, you can easily improvise
your own melody simply by playing the notes of the piano scale that corresponds to that
key signature. So, if you’re playing music with no sharps or flats, that music is in the key of
C major (or, possibly, A minor). If you make up your own melody using only the white keys
on the piano, you will be improvising, and it probably won’t sound half bad! We’ll talk more
about keys, scales, and chords when we dig more deeply into improvisation.
There Are Minor Scales
Just as there are major scales, there are also minor scales, but there are three different
types of minor scales. The first type is the natural minor scale, which has the same key
signature as its “relative major” scale that starts a minor third higher.
WHAT?!
Every major key has a relative minor key. For the key of C major, the relative minor key is
A minor. A is a minor third (3 half steps) below C. The A natural minor scale is the scale
that begins on A and uses only white keys – A-B-C-D-E-F-G-A. So, it has the same key
signature as C major. Notice the whole-/half-step structure is WHOLE-HALF-WHOLEWHOLE-HALF-WHOLE-WHOLE. And yes, you can build any natural minor scale with that
structure.
For reasons dealing with harmony and what composers though sounded good, two other
minor scales came to be used – the harmonic and melodic minor scales.
The harmonic minor scale raises the second-to-last note one half step. So, A harmonic
minor is A-B-C-D-E-F-G#-A, or WHOLE-HALF-WHOLE-WHOLE-HALF-(WHOLE+HALF)HALF. You may notice that scale sounds somewhat “Middle Eastern” – in fact, you’ll find it
used extensively in Disney’s “Aladdin” for that very reason.
The melodic minor scale raises both the third-to-last AND second-to-last notes on half
step, but only when going up, or ascending. The scale is the same as the natural minor
scale when descending, or going down. So, A melodic minor, going up then back down
again, is A-B-C-D-E-F#-G#-A-G-F-E-D-C-B-A. Crazy, isn’t it? Once again, the structure is
the same for any melodic minor scale: WHOLE-HALF-WHOLE-WHOLE-WHOLE-WHOLEHALF (for the ascending portion only).
Well, that’s enough about the piano scale for now. We could go on and on, but it’s best
that you play around with some of these ideas first and get back to making and listening to
more piano music now!