If you are new to Piano playing or in fact learning any instrument, at some point, your teacher will teach you how to play scales.

In case it’s unfamiliar to you, there are 2 main types of scale, a Major scale and a Minor scale. Each Scale is formed of 7 notes and is named by the key that it starts on.

The formation of all 12 major scales follows a set pattern of Semitones and Whole Tones, with the 12  Minor Scales also having their formation based on Semi Tones and Whole Tones.

A Semi Tone is the distance between 2 neighbour keys on the Piano, with a Whole Tone being 2 keys away from each other.

All music is founded in a ‘Key signature’, the scale that is uses, for example the Key of Gmajor, uses the notes found in the Scale of G major, predominantly, although music commonly deviates out of a key and uses notes which are not in that key signature and therefore, its scale.

Learning to play Scales is extremley important for 2 reasons. Firstly , so that if we have a piece of music centred in a particular key, then we know which notes are inherently used in the piece, although, as i said, depending on the music, it may deviate from the set of notes in that key. however, it is the foundation of the piece. If we are familiar with each individual scake, then we already can be sure of where the music is centred and which notes are likely to be used mostly in the music.

The other reason to practise scales is to develop our fingering techinique and normalise repositioning the hand often, so that when playing music, we are comfortable and familiar with adapting to new positions that the music requires us to move to.

12 major and 12 minor scales to learn over a period of time, sounds like alot, but its really worth the effort to practise them to free us up from fingering difficulties we may face and to be comfortable and familiar when play in any of the 24 keys, so that we know the inherent notes that the music is centered in.

Alot of music also uses partial scales within it, and knowing our scales frees us when imporovinsing and creating.

Scales are essential to learn in becoming a competent pianist and musician. Honestly!!