Minor scales cheat sheet harmonic minor raise the 7th scale degree melodic minor raise the 6th and 7th scale degree ascending, revert to natural minor descending. You may also remember the scale notes by roman numerals. You can see from the sheet music below how the 7th. The other 10 whole tone scales have the same notes of these,but, of course, they begin from different tones. Like many musical scales it is made up of seven notes. All scales are made with a specific pattern of whole steps tones and half steps semitones. Each scale has a different use and application in jazz piano. The melodic minor scale differs from the natural minor scale by the sixth and seventh notes, which are raised a semistep. You can make a major and a minor scale starting with any note on the piano. We provide downloads for common scales including major, the three minor scales natural, harmonic, and melodic, the blues scale, and others.
The main scales of western music are major and minor scales. Building a strong foundation of pianoplaying skills will lead to a lifetime of pianoplaying joy. Scales are the stepbystep sequencing of the notes found in keys. This scale can sometimes confuse people because it is in a way identical to the major scale. The key difference between major and minor scaes is that notes on a major scale sound bright and cheerful, while notes on a minor scale sound solemn and sad. List of all natural minor scales piano music theory. Basic scales are a great way to teach your hands how to play independently, and theyre a gateway towards understanding basic chords and how to play within keys. For each note below, write a natural minor scale, one octave. Heres a diagram of the melodic c minor scale on piano. Melodic minor scales jyttes piano sheet collection. It is made up of seven separate notes, plus an eighth which is the same as the first an octave higher.
Here they are, printable with fingering and study guide. We call scales relative if they share the same key signature. Contrary to the major scale, there are not one but three minor scales, which all will be presented here. The best place to start introducing piano fingering exercises is major and minor scales. In solfege these notes correspond to the syllables. Piano minor arpeggios overview with pictures piano scales. As done previously, complete the six scales below turning them into the harmonic version. The two scales you use most frequently when you play the piano and the most famous scales in western music are the major and the minor scales. This will help tremendously in all the other areas of piano study. This scale is also some kind of peculiar since it is sometimes played differently ascending and descending.
This type of scale has five notes per octave unlike a heptatonic scale which has seven notes. Natural, harmonic and melodic forms about minor scales. Fm11 piano chord f minor eleventh charts and sounds. Keyboard imagery will be expanding in your mind and in your hands. Most everyone agrees that the scale that should be learned and mastered first is the c major scale. Practice scales with a drone pitch using the first note of the scale memorize the scales occasionally use a tuner to help you tune each pitch. Major scales are basic to your understanding of musical keys and are the scales that most piano students learn first. Download free piano sheet music for major, minor harmonic, and minor melodic scales for all keys. But if you have no avoid notes like the melodic minor scale, then every chord can be any other chord in that. The major scale is one of the most commonly used musical scales, especially in western music. This means when you are playing in melodic minor harmony, you dont play the chord individually so much as you play the whole key all at once. Piano minor arpeggios close related to the minor scales are these arpeggios, based on major triads threenote chords.
Scales cheat sheet music educator, violinist, orchestra. Each scale is provided as a separate pdf download with finger numbers above each note. The first minor scale that will we discuss is natural minor. Aug 05, 20 learn how to play the a minor melodic scale in this piano lesson with thomas lemmon. How to play piano chords playing a c chord chapter 2.
The three types of minor scales and how to form them. Play scales very slowly with big bows keeping an even tone across the bow stroke practice scales with a drone pitch using the first note of the scale memorize the scales occasionally use a tuner to help you tune each pitch. In order to build an a harmonic minor scale we simply play the natural minor scale, but raise the 7th note. Doing this allows us to count the notes between each note. Piano lessons music theory how many musical scales are there. Every scale determines a key,that is an harmonic combunation of tones based on that scale. Minor scales are built on the 6th scale degree of a major scale. All keys are shown, including the commonly used 12 keys of the circle of fifths diagram, and other theoretical ie. The idea behind doing this was basically that i couldnt find any chord diagrams that werent either being charged for or. Natural minor scales sheet music for piano download free. Playing scales on piano has the added benefit of encouraging visual memory. If you dont want notes, here are picture scales with all the major scales plus fingering for each hand.
Go to the main piano scales page for major scales, pentatonic scales, scale modes and information about what makes up a scale. This chord chart shows the most common chords in the root position. W h w w h w w a half step h is the distance between two adjacent keys on a piano keyboard, and. Listen to it and learn about its interval structure. Make it your goal to be able to play minor scales in every key in music. You can learn the minor and significant triads at first according to the. From each key on the piano you can start either a major or a minor scale. We will first of all learn how to build major scales and minor scales. They all have the aeolian minor scale sequence of whole notes and half notes. One of the most widely used scales in jazz is the altered scale.
Jan 04, 2018 in this piano tutorial, we look at an easy method to build major and minor chords. E minor scale on piano piano scale lessons right and. In minor scales, half steps follow the 2 nd and 5 th notes. For example, d whole tone scale begins from d and has the same notes of the. The difference between these two scales is the pattern of. The most common scales when playing the piano, are major and minor scales. The natural minor scale follows the notes set out in the key signature for the scale without any changes. Below are the minor scale charts for piano in all 12 keys ordered by the circle of 5ths. Learn how to play piano chords, notes, scales, proper finger. Learn how to play piano chords, notes, scales, proper. All 12 major scales share the same pattern of whole and half steps between the notes. Like major scales, minor scales have eight notes, with the top and bottom tonic notes.
Scales, arpeggios and cadences, two octaves margaret denton, piano major scales, arpeggios, and cadences, 2 octaves these scales are arranged pianistically by groups according to fingering patterns to facilitate memorization harmonic form of the minor scale is shown. For many students, when starting out with blues improvisation, its very easy to get locked inside the notes of the blues scale and never deviate away from 6 tones. Unlike major and minor scales, the pentatonic has no semitones. The scale in all keys can be downloaded as a pdffile. I know the beginning of the video is a little dry, but its important. If you need staff paper, you may print the staff paper12 pdf file.
You need to understand something right away to be a piano or keyboard player. Remember that the harmonic version is a natural minor scale with a raised 7th degree. These make great handouts for piano teachers to use with students. After i give you the fundamentals, ill give you a continue reading scales made easy psh. Major pentatonic scale the major pentatonic scale shares five notes with the major scale. The natural minor scale has the following scale formula. This page shows piano and treble clef diagrams of all minor scales, starting from note c. It is played over a v7 chord and is an interesting scale because every note that can be altered, is altered. Because of this construction, the 7th degree of the harmonic minor scale functions as a leading tone to the tonic because it is a semitone lower than the tonic, rather than a whole tone lower than the tonic as it is in natural minor scales. Download our free pdf versions of each scale with fingering. Natural minor, harmonic minor, and melodic minor scales. You would think that because there are twelve different notes there might be twelve different scales.
Piano notes and fingerings in tab, staff, and keyboard images. We will begin our study with the simplest and most common type of piano chords, the triad. Free major and minor scales for piano sheet music dion moult. Free printable pdf downloads with notes and fingerings for scales in every key. Major and minor scales are variations of the diatonic scale, which is a musical scale built with intervals of 5 whole steps and 2 half steps. My interactive pentatonic scales chart for piano shows fingering diagrams for both pentatonic major and pentatonic minor scales. There are 12 major scales and at least 36 minor scales, including harmonic minors, melodic minors and natural minors. This is an incredibly tough question and to be honest there is no definitive answer but im going to provide some insights for you. All minor scales illustrated with pictures including notes and fingerings. Minor scales also have their own unique set of intervals found between the 8 pitches in the scale.
The lesson could not be displayed because javascript is disabled. But if you have no avoid notes like the melodic minor scale, then every chord can be any other chord in that key. In this guide, we will cover piano scales in depth and cover all major scales, minor scales, tones, semitones, chromatic scales briefly. Major scales and key signatures s o, now you can use the letters a through g to name notes on the treble and bass staff and accidentals to create major and minor seconds, aka, whole and half steps if you cant do this yet, stop here, go back to the previous chapters, and practice until you can. In other words chords are groups of notes built on major or minor triads 3 notes. Hey, zach here, heres the free pdf downloads i promised from the webinar. The natural minor scale is often referred to simply as the minor scale.
Harmonic minor scale and chords, natural and melodic minor. At this point in our study of the blues, now its time to introduce the blues scale. Also notice that two v7 chords can be derived from the melodic minor scale. The piano chords chart pdf is very similar to the piano notes chart or chart of other musical instruments and acts as a piano guide. Chords for piano compiled by simon creedy please distribute freely the contents of this pdf file can be distributed freely and are available to everyone. And the only way to do that is to have the patterns of each minor scales unique whole and halfstep signature memorized perfectly. While there is only one major scale, three different variations of the minor scale exist. List of all natural minor scales there are 12 natural minor scales. The mastering of all major and minor scales will benefit your piano skills in countless ways. Introduction to major and minor piano scales share. The pentatonic scale pentatonic scales have only five notes penta means five. You can learn how to form other melodic and harmonic minor scales at our main piano music scales section. The key signature of a minor tells us that there are no sharps or flats in other words, you play all the white notes on a keyboard and none of the black. Download our piano scale finger charts for the major scale, harmonic minor scale and more.
In major scales, half steps appear after the 3 rd and 7 th notes. Jun 02, 2016 there are three kinds of minor scales. Remember that for the melodic minor scale, when descending, you play the natural minor scale. Single octave natural minor scales with fingerings for piano. Minor scales for piano as you may already know, the same technology i used to make guitar scale charts was used to make them for piano too. We shall look at various kinds of scales in this section. Print and download in pdf or midi natural minor scales. Examples of heptatonic scales are the major scale and the minor scale. Melodic minor modes and altered scale the jazz piano site. Dec 31, 2017 learning these three scales in the key of a is a crucial step towards knowing how minor scales for piano work, but dont stop here. In this video lesson well be going over how to learn and drill in scales in the fastest way possible. These natural minor scales are listed below, with four examples shown on the treble clef.
Learning how to play scales will improve your piano playing. For instance in the key of c the pitches of scale are c d e f g a b c. The pentatonics are fun 5 note scales that are essential to blues and country music. Major scales and key signatures s o, now you can use the letters a through g to name notes on the treble and bass staff and accidentals to create major and minor seconds, aka, whole and half steps if you cant do this yet, stop here, go back to the previous chapters. Welcome to this lesson on strategies to learn scales the easy way. Minor scales cheat sheet harmonic minor raise the 7th scale degree. The a minor scale include exactly the same notes as the c major scale which makes them relative keys read. Please scroll down the page for the download links. Natural, harmonic, and melodic forms margaret denton, piano minor scales.
Learn how to play piano chords, notes, scales, proper finger techniques, improvisation, and more. Return from minor scales to piano lessons info homepage. Major scale fingerings pdf harmonic minor scale fingerings pdf 2 octave major scale fingerings advanced 2 octave harmonic minor scale fingerings advanced scales strategies cheat sheet pdf and if youre interested in getting continue reading dominate your piano. There are also 12 possible natural minor scales, or keys, which is identical to saying there are 12 possible aeolian modes. This scale consists of the pitches, a, b, c, d, e, f and g.
Barbara murphy university of tennessee school of music major and minor scales half and whole steps. Learning these three scales in the key of a is a crucial step towards knowing how minor scales for piano work, but dont stop here. Minor scales are no less important or smaller in size than major scales. Lets have a look at two examples of natural minor scales.
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