Questions and answers
No questions on this lesson yet. Be the first to ask one.
Lesson Steps
Add a header to begin generating the table of contents
The B-flat Major Scale
The B-flat major scale starts on a black key, so neither hand begins with the thumb, and neither hand needs the fifth finger: the right hand starts on 4, the left on 3. What tends to happen at first is that the hand wants to start the way it would in C major. It helps to place both thumbs on their first white keys, C in the right hand and D in the left, before playing anything, so the shape of the hand is set from the start.
Lesson Steps
Add a header to begin generating the table of contents
B-flat Major Scale Overview
| B-flat Major Scale Overview | |
|---|---|
| Keyboard Layout |  |
| Staff Layout |  |
| Key Signature | Two flats (B♭ and E♭) |
| Notes of Scale | B♭, C, D, E♭, F, G, A, B♭ |
| RH Fingering | 4 - 1 2 3 - 1 2 3 4 |
| LH Fingering | 3 2 1 - 4 3 2 1 - 3 |
| Relative Scale | G Minor Scale |
| Parallel Scale | B-flat Minor Scale |
Visualize the B-flat major scale layout on the piano
The B-flat major scale starts and ends on a black key, with one more black key, E-flat, in the middle. As a terrain, it begins on a raised ledge, drops to the white keys C and D, rises over E-flat, and runs along F, G, and A before stepping back up to B-flat.
Read the B-flat major scale on the staff
This is the B-flat major scale on the staff, both hands together, one octave ascending and descending. The key signature has two flats, on B and E.
Play the B-flat major scale with hands alone
Each hand on its own is the place to begin. The fingering becomes much clearer once we see the scale’s core positions: a group of three notes played with fingers 1-2-3 (red on the charts) and a group of four played with 1-2-3-4 (blue). Between them, they account for the whole scale.
The core positions don’t start on the first note, and neither hand uses the fifth finger. The right hand begins with the fourth finger on B-flat, the last note of the four-note group F, G, A, and B-flat, then plays C, D, and E-flat as the three-note group. The left hand begins with B-flat, C, and D on 3-2-1, followed by the four-note group E-flat, F, G, and A, and ends with the third finger on the top B-flat.
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 B-flat major scale with hands together
With the hands together, the core positions stop being much help, because the two hands change position at different moments. What we can follow instead are sync points: places where both hands land on the same finger, or where the fingers form a mirror image of each other.
The 2nd fingers meet on G, in the middle of the long stretch of white keys between E-flat and the top B-flat.
The thumbs come together on C and D, right after the starting B-flat, where fingers 1 and 2 form a mirror image, the “crab claw”. Landing there confidently sets both hands up for the rest of the scale.
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 B-flat major scale to more octaves
Extending the B-flat major scale is simpler than it might seem, because neither hand uses the fifth finger. The same core positions just keep repeating, in both directions, until the top or bottom of the range. The right hand finishes on finger 4 and the left hand on finger 3, exactly as they do in one octave.
Avoid common mistakes in the B-flat major scale
What tends to happen at first is that the hand wants to start the way it would in C major, with the thumb. Placing both thumbs on their first white keys, C in the right hand and D in the left, before playing anything sets the shape of the hand from the start.
The E-flat sits alone between two groups of white keys and is easy to miss. Letting the third finger in the right hand, or the fourth in the left, hover over it ahead of time keeps it from catching us by surprise.
Other techniques related to the B-flat major piano scale:
Explore More Piano Scales
Continue learning with our full library of piano scale lessons
