Toronto Piano Lessons: Building Major Scales
2024-12-14 - Alvin
Hello! My name is Alvin Ryze. I’m a professional jazz pianist and music teacher based in Toronto, Ontario. With over seven years of experience teaching jazz, pop, and R&B piano, I’ve had the privilege of helping students develop their skills and confidence in music.
In this blog, I’m going to be showing you how to play a major scale on the piano.
The most important tip to building a major scale is to know the tone/semitone pattern.
You might be asking what a tone or semitone is in music…
A semitone is simply the distance of a half step from one note to another.
- For example, a semitone up from C would be C#. A semitone down from C would be a B.
A tone is the distance of two half steps from one note to another.
- For example, a tone up from C would be D. A tone down from C would be Bb.
The Tone/Semitone pattern to build a Major Scale is: Tone-Tone-Semitone-Tone-Tone-Tone-Semitone
Let’s build a C Major Scale:
- Start on C: Our starting note is C.
- Tone Up: From C, go up a tone to D.
- Tone Up: From D, go up another tone to E.
- Semitone Up: From E, go up a semitone to F.
- Tone Up: From F, go up a tone to G.
- Tone Up: From G, go up a tone to A.
- Tone Up: From A, go up a tone to B.
- Semitone Up: From B, go up a semitone to C.
Therefore, the C Major Scale consists of the following notes: C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C
Now let’s build an F Major Scale:
- Start on F: Our starting note is F.
- Tone Up: From F, go up a tone to G
- Tone Up: From G, go up another tone to A.
- Semitone Up: From A,, go up a semitone to Bb
- Tone Up: From Bb, go up a tone to C.
- Tone Up: From C, go up a tone to D.
- Tone Up: From D, go up a tone to E.
- Semitone Up: From E, go up a semitone to F.
The F Major Scale consists of the following notes: F-G-A-Bb-C-D-E-F