Here are all the major and minor piano music scales with fingering. The scales are in one octave, but you can of course play each piano scale in as many octaves and in any tempo you wish.
All major and minor scales in 1 octave:
Play the piano music scales in the order they are written, this helps you to get used to the fingering patterns.
The scales are organized in order of difficulty following the circle of fifths, but I also teamed the major scales with the harmonic minor scales so that you can see the small changes they actually have.
The major scales all share the same pattern of steps between the notes:
Whole-whole-half-whole-whole-whole-half
The minor scale come in three versions:
Harmonic
Melodic
Natural
The Harmonic minor scale has the same keys as the major scale, but lowers the 3rd and the 6th.
The Melodic minor scale has the same keys as the major scale, but lowers the 3rd when ascending (going up) and lowers both the 7th, 6th and third going down.
The Natural minor scale has the same keys as the major scale, but lowers the 3rd, 6th and 7th steps.
Relative major and minor keys:
Here is another way to learn about the relationship between the scales:
Each major scale has a relative minor scale. They are called "related", since they share the same
key signature
, that is the same amount of sharps or flats. (Your free scales are for beginners- so I chose to write the accidental in front of each note, instead of the key signature.)
So, for example G major and e- minor both have one sharp sign as their key signature. When you practice the G major scale, you can use the same keys again but start and end on a E- this is the Natural E-minor piano scale!
Raising the 7th step gives you the Harmonic minor. Raising the 6th and 7th step going up, and keeping the scale Natural going down gives you the Melodic minor.
The scales that are called relative are 1 1/2 steps apart (a small third). From a major scale you will find its relative minor scale 1 1/2 steps down, and from a minor scale 1 1/2 steps up.
A simple rule when playing scales is not to use your 1st finger on a black key (since it is too short).
The fingering pattern you will see -much more clearly when playing many octaves- is the grouping of fingers in 1 2 3 and 1 2 3 4 patterns.
Try to practice the piano music scales that share the same fingering first, and always hands separately. It is fun to play both- but more important to be able to play one hand at a time without effort.
You can read more about how to learn
piano fingering here.
Now go and do some "finger-jogging" with these piano scale exercises! And remember to start S-L-O-W-L-Y!
