 Hi everyone, this is Jason here from Nathaniel and in this lesson I am going to show you three ways to creatively explore scales, be it the major or the minor scale, creatively explore it but at the same time improve your technique with regards to three important technical aspects which are sometimes forgotten when you practice scales in this approach. Which is just ascending and descending, the ascending and descending approach may not may be great for a technique or for an exercise to kind of you know get by or get started with understanding a scale but it may not serve a few other technical as well as musical goals. So, this lesson basically talks about three ways to practice the scales which are extremely creative. The hope is whenever I say creative is that you can make a song or a melody line using the concept because it allows you to grow further into the process of making music and at the same time each of these three techniques which I am going to share with you are also very important for your finger alignments and for various finger motions which we do very often on the piano keyboard. So it will be awesome if you get your keyboards out and practice this with me, stay till the very very end of the video because it is going to really go all over the place in terms of what we are going to create and perhaps get a notebook out whatever you need to absorb the lesson if you will. Let's get cracking. So, I am going to take the key of E for this entire lesson and usually we are biased as teachers and students towards the major scale so in this lesson let's just do both. We will do E major as well as E minor. You could do the E natural minor but I am going to prefer the E harmonic minor which I feel is a bit more commonly used melodically that's minor third, minor sixth, raise seventh or just major seventh. So it's very important to note that a major scale is determined, the sound is determined by the major third while the minor scale is determined by the minor third that's what gives it that melancholic or that pensive or that sad or serious kind of sound okay. So the first technique to practicing scales more creatively will basically be to play the scale as well as the most important harmonic element or tool or construct of that particular scale which is the default chord. So if you are taking the major scale E major okay. So these are the first five notes E F sharp G sharp AB but from the purpose of the sound of the scale the root, the third and the fifth are the most important notes to give you the flavor of the scale. The moment you play this it's a major scale isn't it or yes it's going to be a major kind of scale. There are many other scales which share the major third but the major scale is a very popular one. So the moment a person plays this chord which is the one, three and the five of the given major scale you just know that you're going to play your entire song on those seven notes which is E F sharp G sharp AB C sharp D sharp E. So E G sharp and B become the most important notes of the scale okay. So I'm going to play you the exercise and then we break it down okay. So the first set basically will go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 3, 5, 8 or 8 means the octave in this case. So this exercise is great because it allows you to play the chord 1, 3, 5, 8 which are the representing notes of the scale and it also allows you to move linearly which is what we call as horizontal motion or scalar motion or linear motion and then immediately we stretch out the hand to play a chord or the representing notes of the E major scale which is 1, 3, 5 octave. Let's do that again okay. Again swaras and look at another very interesting technical thing which this is helping the piano player right. Your hand is sort of compressed in this particular movement when you do 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 2 or sare gama pama gari. Your hand is in closed shape but then when you have to play sag pa sa, your hand has to stretch out right. So this expansion and compression of the hand is crucially important when you are playing the piano. So when you learn your scales you need to learn it with a closed hand and a spread hand. This is a very important technique. So what I have tried to do in this lesson is basically to give you a creative workflow along with a technical workflow which are super imposed in the same exercise. So you go keep the pulse. So when I do scale our movements it's a bit faster so I double the speed 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 1, 2, 3, 4. When you go up the chord we slow down the speed. So up the scale, double speed, chord, single speed. And the left hand is showing that with a simple but steady pulse. And you can even do the descending version. Since your pinky is already here, when you descend you just move your entire hand here. You started with shape 1 here, ended here. Now bring your whole hand towards the pinky, play that from the descend and then come back to the root. So your hand has gone through this compressed state and the expanded state. And even at the top when you descend, compressed, expanded. Then you come back to the top or rather the root and then you start the whole journey again. Keep the pulse. And remember what I said it's important to practice this exercise on different scales. So if we take this on the E minor, for now what has changed? Just the G. G sharp became G. So it's major 3rd becoming minor 3rd, creates that melancholic sound and when you descend observe you don't hit a C sharp, you hit a C instead. You could also keep your left hand busy. You could either play a single E which is the root of the scale that works really great or else you could just play the chord E minor in this case. You could just hold it. And why does this chord work? Because it's playing the representing notes of the scale, the important notes if you will, which is the 1, the 3 and the 5. In this case in the minor scale the 3rd is flat 3. So you go, if you can't hit the entire chord just hit a single E, maybe with an octave but keep the pulse. And if you'd like, you can change the left hand, I love that. So any note in the scale pretty much, C in this case, A, end on B which cycles very well to the root. So the right hand is doing the same exercise but the left hand is sort of driving the vehicle outside the neighborhood if you will. It's really going on an adventure. That's the power with the left hand. So hold a steady pulse in the left hand, start with E then graduate to maybe the chord still on the pulse and then try to change the left hand to play different notes of the scale and explore and see where it goes. If not just hold the pulse, that's more than enough because the right hand is already doing some very creative stuff and some very technical stuff. So let's break that down again. The right hand is going scale R motion and then chord L motion or harmonic motion. So scale, chord, descending scale from the top, chord, descend, scale, chord up, scale, chord down. Okay, on the major again, faster when you do linear motion, slower when you do chordal motion, faster when you scale, yeah. So this exercise is training your hand to expand, compress. It's also giving you the idea of playing linearly as well as harmonically and it's also testing your sense of timing because the linear motion is faster. The harmonic motion is a bit slower. There's a lot going on. So spend some time with this exercise. Also let's look at the left hand to maintain a steady pulse. So in this part of a three part series, we've basically learned expansion compression. So in the next part, we're going to look at another approach which I think is really incredible and will hopefully give you a different perspective to how you practice scales. So practice this one hard and I will see you in the next one. Head over there as well. Cheers. Again, if you haven't already hit the subscribe button, turn on the bell icon for notifications. 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