Study Guides

Unit Summary

This unit introduces major and minor scales and explores what makes music distinctive and memorable. Pupils develop keyboard technique and rehearsal strateiges, learning more complex melodic lines with accidentals and varied articulation.

Lesson Summary

You will learn to play the opening of a piece using sharps on the keyboard and can recognise minor and major scales.

Key Notes

• Scales have their own distinctive sound and are defined by the order of the intervals from one note to the next.
• A minor scale pattern is tone, semitone, tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone.
• The minor scale sounds more solemn than the major scale.
• When major and minor scales use notes outside the scale, these are called chromatic.
• Playing the opening phrase of Fur Elise, which uses both D sharp and D natural.

Vocabulary To Learn

• minor scale: a set of notes where the 3rd and 6th notes in the scale are flattened, and that sound sad or more solemn than a major scale
• sharp: the sharp symbol (#) is used to show that a note has been raised by a semitone
• natural: the natural symbol is used to show a note in the bar has returned to the normal pitch
• chromatic: a note that is not part of the key or scale

Common Mistakes To Avoid

• Adjacent white notes on the keyboard are all a tone apart.

3 Quick Questions (With Answers)

More Lessons In This Unit

• Changing hand positions in the middle of a phrase Study Guide
• Developing fluency in changing hand positions on the keyboard Study Guide
• Fur Elise reimagined Study Guide
• Learning the accompaniment for Fur Elise Study Guide
• Learning the middle section of Fur Elise Study Guide