Major Scale Fingering Made Easy - A Helpful Chart

(Scroll down to download a PDF of the chart!)

My students hear it all the time from me:

"Major scales in music are like the multiplication tables in math.  You cannot advance in math without knowing your multiplication tables, and you cannot advance in music without knowing your major scales."

 

Major Scales = Multiplication Tables of Music! 

 

Why is it so hard to advance in music without knowing your major scales?  Everything in music is a based on major scales.  For instance, a major chord is made up of the 1st, 3rd, and 5th notes of the major scale.  Minor scales and blues scales are described as alterations of the major scale, or formulas based on the major scales. 

 

Without knowing your major scales, you will have difficulty understanding chords, and without knowing your chords, well...my opinion on this is very strong -- you're doomed!  Your reading and memorization will be much more difficult without knowing your chords.  Improvising and playing chord-style/ playing from lead sheets will also be pretty much impossible without knowing your major chords.  And if chords are built from scales, we need to know the scales first!

 

I also describe each scale as a musical language.  I explain to my students that our goal as pianists is to be completely fluent in reading and speaking (playing) each musical language. 

 

 

Each scale is a musical language.  We need to be fluent in every language!

As soon as you can, learn your piano scales in two octaves (even hands separate is fine at first).  The fingering patterns will be much more apparent when you are playing two octaves, and everyone knows that music is much easier when you can see the patterns!  Once you can play two octaves, you can extend that easily to three or four octaves. 

Here is a chart I have been envisioning for years.  I created this chart today to help my students organize the major scales in their minds, understand the patterns, and master them more quickly.  The focus of this chart is fingering patterns, not the notes of the scales (I have put key signatures on the chart to help with that).  I find that, when students see the patterns, scale mastery comes much more quickly!  I hope to post a poster-sized chart on my studio wall.  I think this chart will help any piano hobbyist to compare and contrast the major scales and their various fingerings -- to see how they're the same and different. 

In the chart below, the scales which begin on white keys are in white ovals.  The scales which begin on black keys are in the gray ovals.  Students should learn the scales from top to bottom, following the flow of the chart lines.  I have grouped the major scales by shared fingering patterns.  It is much easier to learn the ones that share fingering patterns first.  For example, pianists should master C, G, D, A, and E major (the first 5 in the circle of 5ths) first because they all share the same fingering pattern.   You will notice that there are 5 scales with unique fingerings - B, F, Bb, Eb, and Ab major.  These should be the last learned because they are exceptions to the patterns found in the other scales.  F# and C# both follow "black key finger matching" rules, so once you understand those rules, you realize that the scales with the most sharps are actually the easiest to learn and play!  For now, I offer this chart for free (small preview below)!  To download a free PDF of this chart, click the link here:  Major Scale Fingering Chart.  And please let me know in the comments section if you find this chart helpful, or if needs any edits!