A SIMPLE Practice Method To Memorize Major Scales

eventually we need to be memorizing major scales to the point where we can effortlessly see the shape that that scale makes on the piano without really thinking about it and when you can do that it becomes much easier to not just play the scale but more importantly play music that uses that scale to move in and around it okay so in a bit i'm going to give you a helpful order for you to start learning your first few major scales and with that there's a handy shape trick i've not talked about before on the channel i think you're gonna find really helpful then at the end i've got a few other tips and things to try too but to start with there's a really simple way you can practice scales with the aim of memorizing them that works really well with my students but i never really hear anyone talking about it as beginners as well as your normal scale practice where there's often a big focus on getting your technique really good trying to play hands together playing in perhaps more than one octave or trying to get faster we should also have a separate practice without being bogged down by that stuff where we can keep our learning goal completely focused on memorizing the scales finding those scale shapes quickly and there's a few simple steps to do that as always when we practice smart and be organized with it we get much better results number one for now for this you want to play the scale just one octave and you want to go up and down at a really really easy comfortable tempo for you go slower than you think you need to go we just want everything to be smooth and relaxed so you're not having to think about the technique too much number two just do this with one hand at a time for now until one day both hands is feels just as easy again we're trying to keep our soul focus on point not distracted by getting fingers messed up or anything like that obviously working on hands together is important but we just do it separately it's also good to go over the scale shape with your finger so if i do g major here going from g and there's our bump there to the next g like that to mark it out and you can also before you try the proper fingers do a warm up just with one finger like this again your mind is now on what the notes are and the shape it makes from the starting note to the endnote number three importantly there's no need to try and learn a whole bunch or all of the major scales in one go we want to start off at least with your memory practice just one and then two scales and then three scales and then four scales and you can only add a new one on once you've got the previous ones confident otherwise we're just overloading our brain and it's too much to manage and it doesn't stick here's what you want to do then let's say you have three scales on the go at the moment c major g major and d major well play those three scales one after the other and you can loop it round however many times you want have a few goes on c major then move on have a few goes on g major and move on have a few goes on d major and at some point you could do less on each you get down to just doing one of each and looping it around now apart from getting the right fingers don't sit there trying to get everything perfect like you would if you were practicing just one scat at a time and focusing on your technique it needs to not be a complete mess obviously but if it's a little rough around the edges don't worry when you only practice each scale one at a time spending ages on each one to get it perfect it's quite common that by the time you get back around to the first one again you've forgotten it and you get them mixed up the important thing about this type of practice is that it's specifically targeting working on how many different scales that you can manage being able to go straight into finding that new scale really practicing that quick recall so these scales eventually become like familiar everyday vocabulary just on the tip of your tongue and lastly number five you don't need to do this for ages that would get boring anyway you just want to do it fairly frequently because that way we're constantly reinforcing what we're learning reminding ourselves and building a habit that kind of practice works so much better getting things feeling more familiar and much easier for you if you want a handy reference for learning your major scales i have a pdf you can get from my website which has clear graphics finger numbers note names notation that has every major scale on there i have one for minor scales two and i'll put a link for those down below okay so for most beginners you only really need to worry about a handful of major scales for a while so i'll just focus here on a few to get you going and show you a helpful scale shape morphing trick too but just quickly though if this video has been helpful so far then please click the like button because that's really helpful for the channel if we look at c major g major d major and a major in that order specifically this order actually comes from something called the circle of fifths don't worry if you haven't heard of that that doesn't actually matter right now i'm going to go over that in some videos in the future now this is a good order to start working on things first because they all use the same fingerings in both hands in this order they progressively add one new black key each time after c g major has one sharp and then d has two sharps and then a has three sharps that's immediately building you up progressively to handling the slightly more wavy and confusing shapes where you can get lost easier but it gets better so you probably already know c major we can think of this as a straight line from the start to the end from c to c if we're just looking at one octave these are just one p's by the way because i'm from the uk but let me know in the comments where you're from that's always fun to know where in the world people are watching now let's compare that to the next one if you learn g major next now you can feel the same pattern under your fingers and you can almost picture the same thing it's just a straight line from g to g remember always keep a marker on your beginning and start really importantly but there's just a little bump at the top so it's just a slight adjustment and importantly this bump at the top is on the seventh note of the scale one two three four five six seven and then we're back or we can say octave a or we can say one again because it's the first note again so remember that the seventh note back to the tonic number one now if we look at d major well now we still have our book ends this time it's d and d and we've got a new starting note obviously but the seventh note we've still got this bump on the seventh note but we've just added one new bump on the third note like that so it's just slightly adjusting the previous shape you've got used to that and you're adding one new thing this time the third note of the scale now if we look at the next one a major there's just one new adjustment again we've still got the bump on the seventh note and the third note but we've added one more on the sixth note of the scale one two three four five six so this bit of the scale is exactly the same shape as the previous key d and this one's almost the same instead of going white here we've just got another black note there this pattern actually carries on when you learn e major after this which is four sharps and then b major after that i mentioned f major two because you're likely to learn music in this key as a beginner because again it only has one black note this time so it's still easy to manage this time it's on the fourth note of the scale although it's a called a flat this time not a sharp and it does have a slightly different finger pattern in in the right hand but again it's good to start getting used to that now f major starts going the opposite way anti-clockwise around the circle of fifths on the flat side but past f the fingers actually get very different so i usually recommend learning these further down the road so you don't need to worry about that just yet but over on patreon i will be going through this shape thing for every key so finishing the sharp side and then also covering the flat side because there's a different pattern i wanted to talk about there that's the kind of extra videos i do over on patreon so thank you to everyone who supports the channel over there so there's a few other tips and things i want to tell you about which can also really help you get super familiar with your major scales and using them it's really helpful to actually understand the pattern of how a major scale is built and i have a kind of a bit of a unique way of picturing that in two simple blocks like chunks of notes which i think is a better way to picture them faster i have a video on how to do that i'm going to pin that in the comments and put it in the description below if you're working on one new particular scale one new key it's really helpful to learn a good few bits of music in that key in one go to start getting familiar so you could do a few bits in in d major for example and then learn the next few pieces in a major to get used to that key now we can make this a bit more fun as well you can practice some simple improvisation in a major scale it doesn't need to sound amazing you're just getting used to well using your ears but also locking inside that shape and getting familiar with the different areas of that scale but it doesn't have to be improvisation you can just kind of experiment with it and perhaps create a song in that key just have some fun with it because you're exercising your musical muscles at the same time as getting familiar with the key and it doesn't feel like you're practicing learning the chords of the key as well i've got videos on that the theory and a way to practice that again i'll put links down below in the description so you can find them easily going up and down the chords that fit inside of the key that's going to be a bit tougher but it really does help if you're a reader you can practice even just some really simple one-handed sight reading exercises staying in one key for a while and then perhaps working on another key for a while and lastly then transposing i'm going to do a whole separate video on this but taking a melody and at some point chords and chord progressions and whole songs from one key to another that's one exercise that in particular i know has really helped me develop over the years so i hope that was helpful let me know in the comments if you have any questions thanks for watching

Channel: Piano From Scratch

Views: 60,710

Keywords: how to memorize major scales piano, memorize major scales, beginner piano lessons, beginner piano tutorial, piano tips for beginners, piano tips and tricks

Id: yTr-RFBekuY

Length: 11min 0sec (660 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 14 2022