Scales: How To

What comes to mind when you think of "scale"? Would it be something on the lines of weight measurement?

http://wubby.typepad.com/photos/development_art/scale.jpg

Maybe you picture something more on the lines of...

http://pinker.wjh.harvard.edu/photos/santa_barbara_california/images/lizard.jpg

Certainly something like this might not come to mind, would it?

http://research.yale.edu/ysm/images/77.4/articles-music-figure1.jpg

If it does, then you're ahead of the gang! What exactly is this third picture? We know now that it is a scale, but what exactly does that mean? For our purposes, a scale is a range of tones starting on one note and ending on that same note. The picture above would be a C scale. The start and end notes are both C, and each of the notes in between are the steps taken to get between each C.

What's the big deal? Why is this important? There is a great deal of music theory to support the importance and structure that a scale provides in music, however we're going to look at the C scale for our hand exercises.

So to start our C scale, start as if you were about to do a finger exercise. Using your RIGHT hand, take your 1 finger (your thumb) and place it on C. The goal when playing a scale is get from the first C to the next in a consistant and efficient way without any pauses or breaks. Basically, this means that if your audience could not see your hand, they might think you had 8 fingers and you were playing one night at a time, from C to C, without any effort.

Unfortunately, we do not have 8 fingers to do this, so we have to use a trick. Here's the secret!

Play C with your 1 finger (thumb)
Then play D with your 2 finger
Follow with E on your 3 finger

-- now here's the trick! --

Instead of playing F with your 4 finger, you're going to tuck your thumb under and play F with your 1 finger. Now, our hand can reach the final note!

So here's the sequence visually, to give you an idea.

finger 1 - C
finger 2 - D
finger 3 - E

then, you will want to tuck your thumb underneath onto F.

Now just play out the rest of your hand.

finger 1 on F
finger 2 on G
finger 3 on A
finger 4 on B
finger 5 on C

And that is how you play a scale! Give it a try, see if you get the hang of it, and tune in next time for some tips to consider when playing scales.