Major Pentascale

Lesson Goal: To quickly internalize the Major Pentascale… and corresponding major triad in all keys… by ear, intellect, eye, and muscle…

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Prerequisites

Basic music reading skills… the LOVE of music… and the discipline to study and practice.

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Why Study the Major Pentascales?

1. Quickly develops the concept of playing in different major keys.
2. Quickly teaches “the first five notes” in every major scale.
3. Quickly develops music reading skills in major keys.
4. Quickly develops visuospatial keyboard awareness in different major keys.
5. Quickly develops the ability to read, construct, and play major triads.
6. Quickly internalizes basic building blocks used in all kinds of music… by ear, intellect, eye, and muscle.

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Study, Practice, & Performance Tips

1. Your goal is not to merely memorize this, but to study and practice it until you internalize it using all four musical intelligences: ears, intellect, eyes, and muscles.
2. Every time you practice something, you are programming your brain. So always play accurately.
3. Practice with a Click Track or a Rhythm Track. Doing so will give you immediate feedback on any rhythmic misconceptions or places where your timing gets sloppy.
4. Record Yourself. Always. Listen to the playback immediately. And ask yourself: Is that what you intended to play?”
5. If anything feels tense or awkward, stop immediately and experiment with alternative fingerings or choreography.
6. Play this in other keys you expect to play in. By the way, once you see the patterns (which is guaranteed if you know your scales and chords) finding the notes in other keys will be a piece of cake!
7. If you feel stuck or overwhelmed, realize that anything can and will be mastered if you slow things down or break things down to small enough pieces.
8. All of this might sound like a lot of work, but it’s not nearly as much as you think. Because even though it takes time to talk about all these things, in practice they can all be done simultaneously!

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Pentascale in the Key of C Major

Scale Degrees: 1-2-3-4-5.
Solfege: Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So.

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C Major Pentascale & C Major Triad

It’s crucial to understand that the major pentascale (1-2-3-4-5 / Do-Re-Mi-Fa-So) and tonic minor triad (1-b3-5 / Do–Mi–So) are inseparably interrelated as follows…

Here’s a short and sweet study-practice idea for getting the major harmony and five-note scale into your ears, intellect, eyes, and muscles…

Notice how it sounds and feels right… and makes musical sense for the chord tones 1, 3, and 5 to fall on downbeats!

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C Major Pentascale & C Minor Pentascale Compared

Three things to understand:

1. It’s all about “the 3”!
2. Mi (3) makes things sound and feel major!
3. Me (b3) makes things sound and feel minor!

Listen to the C Major Pentascale…

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Listen to the C Minor Pentascale…

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Major Pentascales, All Keys: Keyboard Layouts

C Major

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D Flat Major

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D Major

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E Flat Major

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E Major

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F Major

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G Flat Major

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A Flat Major

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A Major

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B Flat Major

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B Major

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Major Pentascales Practice, All Keys

Designed to connect the sound-feeling of the major pentascale to its tonic major triad with emphasis on the 3(Mi)… arranged chromatically ascending through all the major keys…

Listen to a sample @ 120 beats per minute…

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Major Pentascales Practice (MP3 Play Along Tracks in All Keys)

The benefits of playing along with a click track at various tempos cannot be overstated: very slowly at first to have enough time to “think about everything”, then fast enough to be forced to “play without thinking”.

Pentascales Practice, All Major Keys @ 60 bpm…

Pentascales Practice, All Major Keys @ 80 bpm…

Pentascales Practice, All Major Keys @ 100 bpm…

Pentascales Practice, All Major Keys @ 120 bpm…

Pentascales Practice, All Major Keys @ 140 bpm…

Pentascales Practice, All Major Keys @ 160 bpm…

Pentascales Practice, All Major Keys @ 180 bpm…

Buy Frank a cup of coffee (Donations Page) and he’d be happy to send you a zip file that includes a high-res pdf of the score and all the play along tracks for the major pentascales above (and, as bonus, for the major pentascales, too!)

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learn more… Scales.