Back in high school I played trumpet. I never really got any good at it. I particularly struggled with the relationships between the notes in a scale. During college, I took a music theory class and things started to make more sense. After I moved to Washington for work I wanted to incorporate musicality back in my life, so I decided to learn piano. This was when everything really came together. The keyboard keys were much better for me to visualize the patterns of intervals in the scales and chords.
I wish this video existed back then. It further breaks down the mental chunking so you can see groups of notes separated by whole steps. It’s a fast and effective technique to learn the patterns. There’s a simple progresive excercise to build up this skill.
The Scale Learning Excercise
- Start by randomly picking a note, then find the next note a whole step above it. Do this until it comes naturally without thinking.
- The next stage again starts with picking a random note. Then you find the next two notes a whole step above. Again, do this until it’s natural.
- No suprise for the next stage. Pick a random note, then find the next three notes, each a whole step above.
- Finally, the last stage is a little different. Pick a random note. Find the chunk of two. Go a half step above that, then find the chunk of three. Now you’be built a major scale! If you want to add the octave, it’s simply a half step above the last note.
I would recommend spacing out the stages of this excercise. Don’t worry if that takes several days. Don’t move on to the next stage until it is completely mastered.