Scales, and how one fingering fits all

You’re working your way through all the major and minor scales, maybe for exams at Grade 2 and above, or maybe simply because you’re persuaded that practising scales will help you play most pieces better (which is true enough).

You’ll remember when you began how it seemed quite easy. With C major, when you went up, you used the right-hand fingering:

1 2 3   1 2 3 4

The same fingering worked for your left hand when you went down. The other directions in each hand meant reversing the fingering.

Then you were given major scales with black notes – G and D – and introduced to your first minor scales – probably A and D. With all these scales, the familiar 1 2 3   1 2 3 4  fingering worked perfectly.

Problems loom

But it was not long before you discovered there was a hitch: F major looked quite ordinary, with just one flat, but didn’t work with the familiar fingering, which would have forced you to put your thumb very awkwardly on the Bb. So you discovered (or were told) that now you had to switch the order of the groups:

1 2 3 4   1 2 3

That you could cope with, but then things took a turn for the worse when you discovered that a lot of scales started on a black note, and suddenly the seemingly orderly world of scales revealed itself to you as a malevolent seething chaos of different fingerings, threatening to catch you out at every turn.

Ab major, for example starts off like this:

2 3 1 2 3 1 2

while F# major (a.k.a. Gb major) went like this:

2 3 4 1 2 3 1

and so on, with every new scale now demanding a new fingering. But …

Help is at hand: order out of chaos

Let’s clear our heads and take another look at those two scales we’ve just mentioned. We’ll try writing out the fingering for F# major over three octaves, and you can see if any familiar pattern emerges (try it out at the piano now):

2 3 4   1 2 3   1 2 3 4   1 2 3   1 2 3 4   1 2 3   1 2

I’ve used spacing and bold type here to make it obvious, and you’ll see that there is indeed an unexpected reappearance of the old 1 2 3   1 2 3 4 pattern. At the top, another 1 2 3 4 group was starting. In fact, if you start the F#-major scale on the note B, then you’ll be able to use 1 2 3   1 2 3 4  all the way (if you want to think of the same scale as Gb major, that would mean starting on Cb).

But what of Ab major? Surely that will still defeat us, since the first octave didn’t even use finger 4. Well, let’s see. Here’s Ab major ascending three octaves:

2 3   1 2 3   1 2 3 4   1 2 3   1 2 3 4   1 2 3   1 2 3

And again, the familiar fingering is present, this time starting on C, the third note of the scale.

An easy way to get to know the scales

By this stage, the thought will have crossed your mind, “I could probably play every scale with the old fingering if only I knew the magic starting note.” You’re quite right, and here they are, all worked out for you, and put in groups to make them easier to remember:

C, G, D, A, E and B major: simply start the pattern on the first note of the scale

F major: start on the 5th note, C

Bb major: start on the 2nd note, C

Eb major: start on the 6th note, C

Ab major: start on the 3rd note, C

Db major, start on the 7th note, C

Gb major, start on the 4th note, Cb

So it’s very simple. For the major keys with 0 up to 5 sharps, the pattern starts on the first note of the scale , while for all the other major keys, from 1 to 6 flats, the pattern starts on the note C, or in the case of Gb major, on the note Cb. And all of this is for the very practical reason of keeping your thumb off the black notes, so that you can play scales with hand positions that are comfortable and that allow fluency.

Now please don’t go into an exam room and play the scales this way. This is a method for seeing that scale fingering is actually very orderly – even surprisingly so – and that once C major has been learnt, the main task is merely to remember which sharps and flats you need for each key (not forgetting to position your fingers properly, so you don’t have to lurch forward suddenly to reach any black notes). Once you’ve become familiar with the scales using this insight, you can return again to the normal starting point for the flat keys, in the secure knowledge that the same pattern is always present – just a little hidden from view.

P.S. You may have noticed the minor scales aren’t covered here: for reasons of space, I’ll make them the subject of a later article on The Tutor Pages