Beginner’s Guide to Understanding Piano Scales
For many beginner musicians, no matter how dedicated, the mention of the word 'scales' feels like a nightmare. But scales are highly valuable for students taking beginner piano lessons to the most seasoned professionals.
With the help of teachers, students can learn to see scales in a better light and discover fun ways to practice them.
1. Why do scales even matter?
Just like you need to know the alphabet to form words and sentences to communicate, learning scales helps you express your feelings through creating music. They are the building blocks of developing a comprehensive understanding of music.
Every great musician, from Mozart to A.R. Rahman or any other accomplished artist you admire, has spent countless hours practising scales, using them as a compositional tool to craft their timeless music.
Scales are the building blocks of developing a comprehensive understanding of music.
Scales are the foundation for every piece of music, whether it's classical, blues, pop, or rock. Practicing scales enhances your technique on the piano, improves your knowledge, and serves as an essential toolkit throughout the learning process.
2. Why do students fear scales?
There can be the following reasons for students to feel detached from practicing scales:
a. Perception of Scales
Some feel like it's just technical stuff with no room for creativity. They see it as a compulsory ritual rather than a skill-building exercise. This makes practice sessions mentally draining and hard to stick with.
b. Physical Strain
Scales often require precise finger movements and coordination, which can put strain on the hands, wrists, and arms, especially for beginners or those with developing techniques. This physical discomfort can make practicing scales feel more challenging and less enjoyable, leading to frustration.
c. Lack of Immediate Rewards
Scales may not produce the immediate sense of accomplishment or enjoyment that playing songs or pieces does, especially if students don't see the direct benefit in their playing.
d. Fear of Judgement
Students may feel scared that their teachers or friends will think they're not good at playing scales. This worry makes them nervous and not want to practice, putting them in self-doubt.
e. Repetition
The repetitive nature of scale practice can feel monotonous and uninspiring. Students might feel like they're going nowhere, just reading from a piece of paper and hitting the lifeless keys, which makes it feel like a tiring and boring task.
3. Easy Ways to Learn with Fun
As a beginner student, if you related with any of the 5 points above, then here are some amazing tips to help you learn scales easily and have fun while practicing:
a. Learn the Basics
Starting with the most basic and easiest scale on the piano, begin with the C major scale, which uses only the white keys. It's the perfect starting point for beginners.
Take your time and play one octave at a time. Start with your right hand, then try with your left hand. Once you feel comfortable, try playing with both hands together.
Next, play the C major chord with one hand and the arpeggio with the other. To gain control, practice switching hands.
Enjoy the process and remember not to rush!
The above image is from A Dozen A Day by Edna-Mae Burnam. It starts with the C major pentascale, which means playing five notes in a row starting from C. This simple image explains how major sounds happy like a sunny day, while minor sounds sad like a rainy day.
It's a fun exercise to start practising scales, and understanding the emotions associated with sounds.
b. Understand Rhythm
Another way to make practice interesting is by composing a four-bar melody in 4/4 time and in the key of C major. You repeat this melody over and over. Then, try adding the tonic and dominant chords where possible, which are the 1st and 5th notes of the scale. This helps you practice harmonising.
For example, if your melody goes C-D-E-F, you can harmonise it by adding C and G chords (the 1st and 5th notes of the C major scale) underneath those notes. This gives your melody a fuller sound and helps you understand how chords work with melodies.
The image above is a sample exercise for improvisation with its parameters labelled. Notice that at the initial grade level, the student needs to know C and G major in order to play those exercises. Give it a try?
c. Take Inspiration
Playing music with scales is super common even among famous composers like Mozart, Bach, and others. As you get serious about playing, you might start with scales and then move on to Hanon’s exercises, such as those found in his book The Virtuoso Pianist, consisting of 60 exercises.
Here is a small excerpt of it:
These exercises offer various rhythms and playing techniques which might take a few months to get right on your fingertips, but don’t give up. Staying consistent is the key to achieving it.
After Hanon, explore Czerny's exercises, here's a sample from his popular book 101 Exercises. Notice how he incorporates scale passages into the exercises:
The following extract is from a famous Mozart piece often played by budding music students. Similar scale studies are found in Bach's Inventions and Little Preludes and Fugues, as well as in blues scales by great blues/jazz musicians like Oscar Peterson. The marked scale passages are typical of Classical music.
Conclusion
Keep playing those scales, and when you find scale passages in music, enjoy them! There's no one-size-fits-all way to make scales more fun, but it's exciting to find ways to make them interesting and develop your unique style of playing. Remember, scales aren't just keys; they're the key to becoming a better musician. So, keep practicing scales to scale up your skills!
-Dini Siregar
Keyboard/Piano Teacher
Spardha School of Music