Sharing a teaching and learning tool to translate the little black rows of notes into something easy to read, colorful and tangible ( children can see the scale patterns )

http://www.pianoeasyscales.com/

Experience has taught me that children find it really hard to read scales while they are playing them, and I have tried every method I can think of, including colour coding, so my students have been learning scales without printed music for many years. I simply write the scales as a row of letter names, with the right hand fingering above and the left hand fingering below.

For my current Grade 1 students I am trying an experiment: I give them the right hand finger pattern for C major (123 1234 123 12345) and ask them to play me a scale from Middle C going up. They pick this up very quickly, and after a couple of tries will also succeed going down. Same method for the left hand.

I then ask them to start on G, and to find the 'wrong' note. They soon get the idea, and can find the appropriate accidental. Same with D major. With F major they also have to figure out why the right hand fingering is different. All of this without any printed material at all, and great aural training too.

No, I haven't got to the harmonic minors yet. Watch this space!

This looks interesting but I notice the website doesn't give the price!

Are you looking at the homepage only? Click around and you will find it

http://www.pianoeasyscales.com/contact-1-1

I explore the possibilities of the cards on 3rd and 6th apart, contrary motions scales too.

I also use them on theory topics like intervals and degree of the scales.

The kids like the colorful cards, and i challenged them once in a while, remove the cards from the piano, and see if they could get the scales right...part of the lesson games.

The best part is the kids can be more independant at home, all they have to do is just take out the cards and play the scales we have learn for that week, OK....no more excuses...the one i always get from them : "i forgot what you taught me"!

They are basically ?15.50 each plus postage.

Would you say they would be any good for someone preparing for grade 8 and who knows quite a few scales?

Like pitcher54, i also use the "can you find the wrong note" when learning other scales using the finger pattern they know. Young kids find it fun plus it also gives me an indication of how musically aware they are of wrong notes etc. I had a look at the site of the suggested piano book and it looks good. However, i often use a book called "scale shapes" which my students find useful, and it's much cheaper too!

One of my six year old pupils told me recently that C Major (just one octave!) is "yellow" (??) and G Major is "green" - I asked why she said that and she just said the sound reminds her of those colours! Actually quite good advice from a six year old - associating scales with colours may be an alternative way to remember them!

I've been using pictures of the keyboard with finger numbers on them for years. They learn first with the picture in front of them and then they try to do the scale from memory when they feel ready. Mine don't have any colours - just the black and white keys and the finger numbers.

I have found this the quickest and easiest way to get scales learnt as far as playing them is concerned. But it needs theory back up if they are to have a full understanding of what they are doing. Use the right fingers and spot the wrong note is something I also use and it's very useful for introducing new tonalities and the cycle of fifths.

This is more or less how I do it. Though I do incorporate (non-reding) theory in it from the beginning - gt the semitones in the right place etc.

They soon know what 3-4-3 means (it's where the turns are) and that for grade 1 only F in the RH is different.

For the minors, I don't go from the key-signature, becasue they've been using the minor mode for a long time, playing Dozen-a-Day exercises and dropping the 3rd note of the scale. I start from C major and go to C minor. Then I start them on D and ask if D all white notes sounds major or minor, and they raise the F# to make the major.

When we want octave minor scales, I start by showing them the tonic and the dominant, and suggest that if they're going to go up and then down again from the dominant, it's a bit of a haul to go up a whole tone only to come down again, and indeed DEFGABb AGFED sounds more "familiar" to them than using a B natural. Then I go down underneath the D and similarly suggest that just a semitone sounds more "connected" to the D. Yes, I know the reaons for this in harmonic theory are a little more complicated, but we're just learning to play them for the third time. Go up as far as the 6th, all the way down, just tip the 7th and back again - still sounds all right. Only when you go up or down through the 6th and 7th do you get this snake-charmer effect. In D minor it's a recognisable leap across a chasm, so I call it the Mountain Goat (comes up again in g2 with G minor)

Usually they like that version, and I just show them the A minor harmonic as well, but I show them how they can "smooth out" that big gap to make a smoother melody lift the 6th on the way up (gives you two black notes) and drop both the 6th and the 7th back down when you come down - 2 white notes. Escalator. Almost all of mine choose harmonic for D minor. Maybe 3 out of 5 choose the melodic for A minor. I've always shown them both forms of whatever minor scales we're using. I never do it startng from the key-signature, but look at finger patterns. We look at the key-signature a little after we've learnt the pattern.

Most pupils who come to me having already learnt have a scale book. I've never used one, in fact I''m not entirely sure how I wouold teach effectively using one. My recent 17yo grade 1 used one, and up to the last lesson he was vey confused about what was in which scale. It turned out he was practising them ervery day, but always from the book and always in the order printed, so he couldn't remember which was which when they were thrown at him in random order.

I believe this is a known phenomenon in some people, but I don't really know the first thing about it. I think it might be called synaesthesia or something, and means that some people see or feel a colour very strongly associated with non-coloured things. We're all differnt, and that's how some people are!

I believe this is a known phenomenon in some people, but I don't really know the first thing about it. I think it might be called synaesthesia or something, and means that some people see or feel a colour very strongly associated with non-coloured things. We're all differnt, and that's how some people are!
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Think it's call Chroma?

I was very surprised that scale books existed when I restarted piano as an adult. I had never used them as a child. I use them now, but only for the fingerings - I can't actually read the scales as I'm playing them.

[quote name='carnival' date='Jul 10 2012, 01:07 AM' post='1159026']
I believe this is a known phenomenon in some people, but I don't really know the first thing about it. I think it might be called synaesthesia or something, and means that some people see or feel a colour very strongly associated with non-coloured things. We're all differnt, and that's how some people are!
[/quote]

Think it's call Chroma?
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I can definitely remember having different coloured pain, specifically very bright orange pain towards the end, when I was in labour with my first baby. I think I even told them that at the time, and probably got a lot of sideways glances!

Synaesthesia is the interlinking of senses so people will experience things such as seeing colours when they see particular words or lettters or experiencing certain tastes in their mouths when they hear particular words, or indeed seeing colours when they hear music. Liszt had it and would apparently confuse orchestras during rehearsals by saying things like "Play it bluer!"

Pixie porsche : Would you say they would be any good for someone preparing for grade 8 and who knows quite a few scales?
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Two of my grade 8 students got it for their own 6th apart practice, and they are using the visual guides to teach their young beginner students too!