Overview of piano scales
Let’s examine some commonly used scales from the perspective of a keys player. We’ll cover major, minor, pentatonic, chromatic, and blues piano scales. While these may well be all you ever need, there are dozens of major and minor scales used in Western music.
Some terms that we’ll use in the following descriptions include ‘tonic’ (the first note of a scale), ‘whole tone’ (an interval of two keys) ‘half tone’ (an interval of a single key, also known as a semitone), and ‘degree’ (the position of the note of a scale relative to the tonic).
Major piano scales
Let’s begin with the major scale, which is what most beginners learn to play first on a piano, C major specifically. Why C major? Well, the pattern of a major scale is tonic, whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. So, C major starts on C, and hits all the white notes on an octave before finishing on the C on the octave above. Let’s see how this looks on the piano roll. We’ll label each degree, with 1 being the tonic.