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The E-flat Minor Scale
E-flat minor looks crowded on the page, with six flats, but under the hand it's one of the more natural scales. Most of it sits on the black keys, and the only white keys, F and C-flat, are exactly where the thumbs go. Once we stop reading the individual flats and start thinking of the groups of black keys as shapes, the fingering tends to organize itself.
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E-flat Minor Scale Overview
| E-flat Minor Scale Overview | |
|---|---|
| Keyboard Layout |  |
| Staff Layout |  |
| Key Signature | Six flats (B♭, E♭, A♭, D♭, G♭, C♭) |
| Notes of Scale | E♭, F, G♭, A♭, B♭, C♭, D♭, E♭ |
| RH Fingering | 3 - 1 2 3 4 - 1 2 3 |
| LH Fingering | 2 1 - 4 3 2 1 - 3 2 |
| Relative Scale | G-flat Major Scale |
| Parallel Scale | E-flat Major Scale |
Visualize the E-flat minor scale layout on the piano
These charts show the overall layout, or terrain, of the E-flat minor scale in each of its three forms.
Natural Minor
Harmonic Minor
Melodic Minor
The natural minor is easiest to picture as the six black keys between the two E-flats, with only two white keys, F and C-flat, filling in the gaps.
Read the E-flat minor scale on the staff
Natural Minor
Harmonic Minor
Melodic Minor
Here is the E-flat natural minor scale on the staff, one octave up and back down.
Play the E-flat minor scale with hands alone
Let’s take each hand separately first. It helps to think of the scale in terms of its core positions, the two groups of notes the hand can cover without moving: three notes played with 1-2-3 (red on the charts) and four played with 1-2-3-4 (blue).
In E-flat minor, the core positions don’t always start on the first note of the scale, because they follow the comfortable resting position of the hand rather than the order of the notes. The right hand begins with the third finger on E-flat, and the left hand with the second.
The charts below show the core positions of the E-flat minor scale in each of its three forms.
Natural Minor
Harmonic Minor
Melodic Minor
A useful way to work with the core positions is in three stages:
- Block: play all the notes of each core position together, moving up and down the keyboard. This lets us see each position as one shape and get used to the pattern repeating.
- Crawl: play one note at a time, but hold each note down until the whole position is under the hand, then pause before moving on. This builds the physical sense of each grouping.
- Anticipate: play legato, releasing each finger as the next one plays, while keeping the next position in mind before we arrive at it.
Play the E-flat minor scale with hands together
When we put the hands together in E-flat minor, the sync points are the thing to follow: the moments where both hands land on the same finger, or where the fingers form a mirror image. They fall in the same places in all three forms, even though some of the notes change, and the examples below use the harmonic minor.
The first sync points are on the group of three black keys, G-flat, A-flat, and B-flat, where fingers 2, 3, and 4 form a mirror image in both hands. D and E-flat form a similar mirror image with fingers 2 and 3.
The thumbs come together on the white keys around the groups of black keys: F and C-flat.
The same three stages work for sync points:
- Block: find each sync point and play it on its own, outside the scale.
- Crawl: play the scale up and down, stopping on each sync point to look at it and notice how it feels under the hands. There’s no need for legato here.
- Anticipate: play in a steady rhythm, seeing each sync point coming and landing on it with a slight accent.
Expand the E-flat minor scale to more octaves
Because neither hand uses the fifth finger, extending the E-flat minor scale to more octaves is mostly a matter of letting the core positions keep repeating. The fingering at the top and bottom stays exactly as it is in one octave.
Natural Minor
Harmonic Minor
Melodic Minor
Here is the E-flat natural minor scale in two octaves, ascending and descending, with fingering.
Avoid common mistakes in the E-flat minor scale
With so many black keys, it’s easy to second-guess each change of position. Seeing the larger groups of black keys as units is what settles it.
The white keys can be overshot or undershot. There are only two of them, F and C-flat, and anticipating them with the thumb as it tucks under makes them much more dependable.
Other techniques related to the E-flat minor piano scale:
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