Printable Piano Music Scales for Beginners

Would you like to learn piano music scales with the correct fingering?

Here you can print and practice all the major and harmonic minor piano music scales with fingering. The printable scales below are organized in groups with comments, so you can learn the fingering easier.

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There are 12 Major and 12 Minor Piano Music Scales

12 keys on the piano.

There are 12 different pitches on the piano. You can easily see them as 7 white keys, and 5 black.

Starting from any key on the piano you can play a scale. A scale is a series of notes (pitches) arranged from lowest to highest.

The most common scales when playing the piano, are Major and Minor scales. From each key on the piano you can start either a major or a minor scale.

All scales are made with a specific pattern of whole steps (tones) and half steps (semitones). 

All 12 major scales share the same pattern of whole and half steps between the notes: 

Whole-whole-half-whole-whole-whole-half

Major scale pattern starting from C.

This pattern of whole and half steps is what creates the sound of major!

The 12 minor scales, however, come in 3 variations:

  1. The Harmonic minor scale uses the same keys as the parallel major scale (same starting note, but major), but lowers the 3rd and the 6th.
  2. The Melodic minor scale uses the same keys as the parallel major scale, but lowers the 3rd when ascending (going up) and lowers both the 7th, 6th and third going down.
  3. The Natural minor scale uses the same keys as the parallel major scale, but lowers the 3rd, 6th and 7th steps.

So this gives us 3 different patterns (as compared with the 1 pattern of the major scale).

To simplify, we can still say that we have only 12 minor scales, but with altered notes on the 6th and 7th steps. So an A minor scale can be played in a natural, harmonic or melodic variation.

Piano Scales Fingering Rules

A simple rule when playing scales is not to use your 1st finger on a black key (since it is too short).

  • The fingering pattern you will see (much more clearly when playing many octaves) is the grouping of finger numbers 1 2 3 and 1 2 3 4.
  • Try to practice piano music scales that share the same fingering first, and always hands separately.

It may be fun to play both hands together, but it's more important to first of all be able to confidently play one hand at a time without effort.

  • Now go and do some "finger-jogging" with these piano scale exercises! But remember to start S-L-O-W-L-Y!
Free printable piano music scales.

Printable Piano Music Scales in all Major and Harmonic Minor Keys

Here you can print piano scales to practice with.

All the scales below are in one octave, but you can of course practice each piano scale in as many octaves and in any tempo you like.

The scales are organized in order of difficulty following the circle of fifths, but I also teamed the major scales with the parallel harmonic minor scales so that you can see the small changes they actually have.

Many times you can even use the same fingering. This also makes the scales easier to memorize.

Make sure to read the comments in the score to help you more.

Please note that there is no key signature used. This is to make it easier for beginners to quickly learn the scale pattern and fingering without worrying about learning the key signature.

Free, Printable Piano Scales with Fingering (PDF)

TIP: Practice the piano music scales in the exact order they are written, this helps you to get used to the fingering patterns!

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