I know there have been frequent threads about C major being the hardest scale on the piano and that many teachers do not start with this one. However...

C major is the first (and only) scale that my daughter has learnt. She has been playing it two octaves separate hands for the past three weeks and since last week is supposed to be playing it both hands together. Does anyone have any tips as to how best to go about it as she is currently very frustrated with it?

I got her to play it contrary motion and she had no problem doing this (and in fact thought it was great fun). However when doing it similar motion she seems to be able to think only of one hand at a time; not only does she muddle up whether it is supposed to be 3 or 4 when playing both hands together but also quite often will end up playing the same finger in both hands (ie her right hand will play C,D,E (1,2,3) thumb under on F and the left-hand will play C,D,E (5,4,3) and then she'll put her thumb on F.

I did think of teaching her B or Db but wasn't sure that this would actually help since it is doing different things in each hand which is causing her problems.

I also wondered if it would help if I got her to practise both hands together just one octave. (She has never actually played it as a one octave scale with her teacher).

I would definitely suggest playing hands together in one octave first, very slowly and only if she can play it comfortably hands separately. When she has mastered this, then I would go on to doing two octaves, hands separately very slowly and when she has mastered this, hands together.

Maggiemay had a great tip before...count two beats on each note. This allows plenty of time to think about what comes next.

Two octave scales can be tricky to crack initially, but if done carefully at first usually the rest come quickly enough.

She can play two octaves hands separately very well with a regular beat and an even tone. Two octaves contrary motion was also played with no hesitation and regularly.

I think I found it useful to practice just playing up and down all 5 fingers with both hands in similar motion, to get used to them not doing the same thing at the same time. ie CDEFGFEDCDEFG... When this is completely secure, try and do the right fingering up and down an octave.

Ask her to play a scale of C for one octave with both hands together and then move her hands an octve higher and play it again. When she can do this happily show her how to join the two scales together by placing both thumbs on C and crossing with left hand finger 4.

If you use a crotchet then six quavers as the rhythmic pattern, repeated as needed, the key notes will always be longer and will give her some thinking time as well as a marker for where the thumbs should be placed.

A two octave scale ascending with a stop at the top would be a good goal to aim for at first.

Yes - I agree. I normally take longer over the whole process than you describe, kerioboe, fwiw, and take it in smaller steps, although that helps your daughter not at all, I'm afraid. But the two things are a grade apart, in AB terms - 2 octaves separate hands = grade one: 2 octaves similar motion hands together = grade 2. For some children I find this step is a bigger hurdle than the difference in level of the pieces at the two grades. Just a thought.

Pianodub, fancy you remembering that! glad it helped anyway.

It sometimes helps to find 'landmarks' where the same fingers on each hand play together (you can pause at these points too, if it helps, a bit like Petrat suggested.

eg 3s together on E and A, thumbs together on second C, etc.

I use it all the time!

There is a considerable leap from playing it HS to HT. I would always take a very gradual approach as described above. I have had students in the past who could play the scales beautifully HS in 2 octaves but initially struggled with HT.

Aiming to do an ascending scale only initially is a very good idea and also something I have done with students in the past.

I am really surprised that the C Major is considered to be one of the hardest scales.
I thought that it was the easiest :S

I agree with pianodub. Let her try one octave first and then two octaves and try to focus on only one hand.
Sometimes it helps

The most important thing (when going from playing ANYTHING - not only scales - with hands separate, to playing with hands together) is is to play as slowly as necessary to get it right.

And that applies even if that means holding a pair of notes for several seconds while thinking through how to play the next two. This gives the mind time to assimilate the new co-ordination and although it seems ridiculously slow at first it is in fact the quickest way to attain fluency with precision, and ... sooner than you might think ... speed too. Trying to play more quickly than the brain can cope means that you'll never learn the co-ordination properly, or at best it will take much longer to get there.


C major is the easiest conceptually - at least on a piano - because it is simply all the white keys. Also part of the apparent simplicity is really familiarity, because so many musical examples and beginner's pieces are written in C. Physically it is one of the most difficult scales on the piano because the thumb always passes under a finger that is on a white note, and it requires good technique to avoid its motion being cramped.

For this reason the physically easiest scales on the piano are B major and Db major, where the fingers are on black notes when the thumb passes under. They look frightening to a beginner because of all the sharps and flats in the key signatures, but if you learn them directly at the keyboard, and do not bother with a written score, that "difficulty" goes away. In fact they become rather easy, because the pattern of black and white notes is inherently memorable, and relates more easily to the fingering pattern . You have the visual and kinaesthetic cue of going from black to white to signal a thumb move. In C major there is no such cue or aid to memory.

It's easy to get lost in C major

She probably gets stuck at the point where she has to cross over thumbs and fingers at different times in each hand. I would suggest breaking the scale down into a few notes at a time-

Start with hands together CDEFEDC - this covers the first (RH) thumb under

Then CDEFGAGFEDC - this covers the next (LH) cross over.

And so on this will help her to rehearse each of the 'awkward' spots and build up gradually from something that she can already do (presumably CDEDC is OK as there are no crossovers - but start with this first if you need to build confidence)

Hope this helps...

I think I will try Petrat's idea:


And SueHM's:


Unfortunately her teacher insisted that there shouldn't be any pauses in it (ie not play the tonic in the middle or at the top any longer than the others) so she has been very reluctant to try altering the regularity of the scale. She ought to accept Petrat's and Sue HM's ideas as these involve breaking up the scale rather than lengthening some notes.


Mad Tom, I think you would get on well with my daughter. Her idea of practising is to play a bar (occasionally two) at a time very slowly until it is perfect, then she speeds it up and then, and only then, does she move on to the next one. I think she is feeling defeated by the scale because she can't see how to break it up - in her book it is not written in bars but just has the notes and the fingering. Her teacher sees her approach to practising as somewhat obsessive and expects her to muddle her way through the whole piece rather than play a few bars perfectly.

Despite the problems with the scale (at the moment) I am quite pleased that her teacher this year is actually teaching her some technique and not just throwing increasingly difficult pieces in front of her. Last year she played a couple of pieces which involved putting the thumb under and her teacher didn't show her how to do it so she was moving her whole arm. When she taught her the scale hands separately she showed her how to put her thumb under properly and it has also improved her legato playing in general.

Another idea that I've used successfully, with students of all ages, is playing in clusters, so that the students get used to the groupings of the fingers. The number of fingers in a group is, for the RH, 3 4 3 5 , and then backwards; and the reverse for the LH (5 3 4 3 ) .( With me so far? ) This can be established by playing on the closed piano lid - calling out the numbers, and moving the hand along, as if you were playing a scale. This is also useful for making sure the wrist is being used to travel from one position to the next. Next step is to transfer to the keyboard, starting on any white key. I often use A ( and often say anywhere except C, but no matter).

To fast forward a bit, once the groupings are firmly established, and it's time to play together, they call out the number groupings to the RH on the way up, and the LH on way down ( talk to the hand) and/or the other way round. At the half way point ( the middle key note), we chant 'Thumbs - 4' , as the thumbs should be meeting on the key note, after which the 4 comes over in LH going up, and RH going down. ( Boy, this is relatively simple to demonstrate, but hard to explain! I'm reminded of those exercises we had to do in English, when we had to describe a simple process such as making a cup of tea, or tying your shoe laces.)

Please reassure your daughter that this isn't easy, and that most students, often considerably older than she, have huge problems with it. And anyway, how often does a straight-forward 2 octave scale of C major exist in real music? I can think of the 1st Beethoven concerto, but not much otherwise. I hope she can find something musically fun and engaging to do as an antidote after this slog. Good luck to her - she sounds a determined character, and a rewarding student.

PS - doing the 'clusters' is actually harder than doing the real scale, because you're having to think more quickly. So, once you've got those sorted, it's plain sailing from there. In theory.

It would be if you weren't required to use such a deliberately difficult fingering for it. Try four octaves ascending always putting the RH thumb under after 4 and 4 over after every LH thumb; fingering instructions apply to opposite hands when descending. Thumbs always come together and an accent happens naturally every four notes.

What about adding an extra note per day - or day or two? For instance, on Day 1, learn the first three notes, hands together, up and down, then on Day 2, add F, always going really slowly, and never adding another note till what you've got is secure up and down? In theory, then, when you eventually get to the top C, you should find it relatively easy to descend.

I liked the way the old Guildhall introduced first all the scales that used this fingering - C, G, D majors for example, meaning that the pupil knew that 4 in the LH was always on 'ray', and 4 in the RH was always on 'te' - and nowhere else. It also helps to be aware that both 3's are always played together,

There's no reason why you can't use non-standard fingerings if they work better.

i think D Major is the easiest scale, for the right hand only!
Change fingers on every black note.

Even for RH only, I think that if you will play either B maj or Db maj alternately with D maj you will come to agree with me that B maj and Db maj are easier and more comfortable. This is because after playing a note with the thumb, the placement of the second finger on a black key is a shorter distance than playing it on a white key as happens in D maj and equally importantly it is easier to accomplish with no change in the basic hand position.

I agree, B and Db majors are definately easier than D major, they just seem to flow better under the hands, and they dont have complicated finger patterns like Mad Tom said. My piano teacher always gets me to warm up with those two scales, and we play in 6ths, 3rds, contrary, staccato, etc, because they are friendly hand positions to warm up to.

Jacob.

Or you could try playing the first 5 notes of the scale and the last 5 notes of the scale as 2 independent exercises (written out) which has worked for my pupils:

1)
12312 (RH)
CDEFG
54321 (LH)

2)
12345 (RH)
FGABC
21321 (LH)

The nice thing about this is that one of the hands is playing 12345 whilst the other hand has the cross over and it covers both the start and end of scale (1 8ve)

When this is mastered, join them together to play 1 8ve.

I wouldn't consider 2 8ves until 1 is thoroughly known HT

Update: she can now play one octave at a reasonable and (more importantly) regular speed.

I got her to do the first five notes (passing the right-hand thumb under) both up and down for two days, then this afternoon she added the remaining three notes to complete the octave. I think I'll get her to stay with one octave for several days before adding anything else. As it's half-term her next piano lesson isn't until a week on Thursday so that should give her time to learn the full two octaves bit by bit.