 Hi guys, this is Jason Zach from Nathaniel School of Music. In this tutorial, we are not going to learn the whole of that awesome song by Stevie Wonder, Isn't She Lovely? But we are going to focus on training our knowledge of the major pentatonic scale, a very important scale in music, almost all melody lines, the catchy ones at least, and most of the licks we add during our piano solos, guitar solos, will end up being on some pentatonic scale or the other. And there are generally two pentatonic scales that we use a lot with pop, rock and any kind of music, whether it's blues, funk, folk or whatever, it's the pentatonic scale. And in this particular lesson, we are going to focus on the major pentatonic scale. So I'm not using the whole Isn't She Lovely, just the end Isn't She Lovely, made from love, that lick. So we are going to learn that pentatonic lick and a very important goal behind this lesson is to improve our piano fingering and learn the pentatonic lick and be very good at pentatonic playing. Being good at pentatonic playing will further improve our major and minor scale playing as well. It will give us a lot more fingering capability and confidence, which is why in this particular lecture we are going to learn Isn't She Lovely, the pentatonic lick on every single scale. I'm not going to leave even one stone unturned. We are going to do how many scales again, 12. Seems like a lot. Don't worry. We are going to get this done. We are going to figure out how we can make this easy, not just with one hand, but with both hands. Quite tricky actually come to think of it. It's the part of the song where the whole band kind of plays it. So we are going to learn that particular lick on all 12 scales. Let's start with the original scale E major and all of the licks are notated for you. It's waiting for you on our Patreon page. You will also get the MIDI files if that helps you. So you will also be given the correct fingering along with the notation on each scale or each key of each scale, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in the right hand thumb being 1 and 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 in the left hand with the pinky being 5. So before we get started it will be awesome if you could consider hitting that subscribe button and turning on the bell icon for regular notifications. Let's get cracking. E major first of all, Isn't She Lovely made from love? So the lick, first of all, let's first get towards counting it. So it's a triplet time feel. So 1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4 and that's how we would count this. So 1 and a 2 and a 3 and she won the turn of the E, E, E, E, E, E, E, E, E, E, isn't she one under a 4. So it's basically triplets and the lick is also triplets. So it's crotch it, triplet rest at the first beat, at the down beat, 1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4 and a stop, 2, 3, 4 that's the lick. So as I teach you this lesson, I'll first show you right hand fingering, left hand fingering then we put it together and move on and it's good to have the context. So what's the E fingering? I'm starting with my middle finger and then thumb, trying to not confuse you too much with me also saying the fingering. You can see it in the notation and you can obviously see my fingers as I'm playing it. So middle, the key moments you could say are, so bring back your middle here I guess and there's a crossover. I don't want to use my ring finger and pinky finger because I can kind of just cross my thumb and use just these three and then jump down with the thumb. And test your fingering by trying it at a speed which is a bit outside your comfort zone. So it's okay if you make mistakes but just try and make sure that you can kind of fly with it and make sure you'll also fix any kind of wrong fingering by playing it by playing it inefficiently, by going maybe by repeating a thumb like this. There's no second doubting the fingering if you cannot play it at a faster speed. So try to, see it's pretty efficient because it's also easy on my hand except for that last stretch but that's something you can still manage. So try and speed it up not so fast necessarily but at a speed which challenges you. So let me show you the left hand pretty much playing the same lick on E major of the pentatonic lick. This seems to be pretty efficient. What am I doing here? Starting with my thumb finger so and then my ring will be here because the ring seems to be ergonomically right there. So thumb ring would be good. Now you would want to cross. Cross what? Now here you can cross a couple of things. You can do thumb, can cross twice. What I like to do, ring, ring, thumb, middle, thumb, pinky, so it gets me some speed. Having said that, you can also cross with your middle finger. It just feels a bit slippery to me with the middle finger. So in this lesson we are going to get really down to it so to speak, which finger slips more, when to use the ring, when to cross, how to angle certain fingers so do stay tuned till the very end. We'll be covering this lick on all scales. If you do this lick your confidence on the piano is going to go sky high, trust me. So left hand, so thumb, ring, cross your ring and putting that together now with the right hand. Let's take it a bit low, try to add some speed, seems a bit efficient. Or scatter, spread out your hand if you're getting confused. It will also train your eye because if you spread out your hand, your eye doesn't know where to look. You know, are you going to look there but then you see I made a mistake with the left hand because I couldn't see the left hand so you have to train your eye and you have to develop that muscle memory to get it well possibly just with a kind of an eagle eye vision or a bird's eye vision where you kind of see it so that's another challenge you could spread out your hand or keep it close by so your eye still has the bird's eye but it's looking, it's easy to look. So if you play this hand maybe here and this hand even lower then you have to trust one hand you know so that also could be a good practice goal. Now I'm trying to trust both my hands, I don't think that will work, let's, ah yeah I got that but I may need to blindfold myself because I have to look when I play So a good way to test if your fingering is correct in the most extreme way I guess is to not look at both hands and just go for it and pentatonic licks strangely enough for the piano are a lot tougher than the linear licks. This I find very contrasting compared to a guitar player or a violin player or even a horn player maybe any player all instrumentalists apart from piano players I think will find pentatonic licks a lot more playable more common or more possible than a piano player so I would say focus more attention towards the pentatonic movements rather than the linear ones all the time so we are in it again to revise we've done it on E now let's journey forward I'm going to take you now to the all black scale that's F sharp major so I chose F sharp major pentatonic scale because it's super easy it's just all the black notes there we go it's pretty much that so the link is just on this on the five black notes because F sharp major pentatonic is F sharp G sharp A sharp C sharp and D sharp so let me show you the right hand as usual so what did I do here I'm starting with my middle crossing my thumb now it's almost like playing the a white note C major scale see you cross after three right same thing here cross after the third just that your hand is a bit wider isn't it let's try it at speed feels a bit slippery but you can you will get used to it I think I think find the sweet spot you don't want to play here you don't want to play to inside because it's a bit tougher to play the black notes deeper so played around the central area of the black key if you will and then what does the left hand do we have to put the two hands together but first only left hand it's pretty easy you keep all your five fingers planted on the pentatonic scale like this the lower one comes so pinky there F sharp cross your middle so whole story slowly gets more comfortable over time sync up your two hands, again to revise middle, so middle, thumb, index, middle, cross, pretty efficient as you can see by my speed and then the left hand, pretty efficient as well. So it's 5 plus 3 here while here it's 3 plus 5 if you look at the fingers. So that's F sharp, enjoy the scale, don't get scared of it, you can even do that on F sharp major pentatonic, get used to it. So moving on, I'm going to cluster three scales with pretty much the same fingering but different notes, those would be C major pentatonic, F major pentatonic and G major pentatonic. So now our work is going to start getting only easier and easier, so do stick around, we've done E major, we've done F sharp, now things are going to get easy, we've done the ground work. So if you take C, you take the same fingering as earlier pretty much, I'll just show you. First get your notes, you should probably write down the pentatonic scale which is 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, we are also accessing the low G, so your first note C has to be played with the middle finger, rhythm is the same, lick is the same, we've just transposed it to C and a good way to get a vibe would be 4, a 1 and a 2 and a 3 and a 4, see I'm snapping at the 1 and the 2, so bam, almost the same as F sharp, right, so bam, too slowly, bam, bringing in the left hand which is not very tricky at all, you go bam, fairly simple, it's kind of a 5 plus 3 fingering as I'm calling it, middle, start with the middle, the other fingers here, stack up here and repeat, recover, bring back your middle there, as you can see it's pretty efficient, so as you practice both hands, scatter them or keep them together and it's easy to see when they are just one octave apart, you can even scatter, so this comes again, if you get it right, maybe 4 times you can reward yourself by playing the whole song, and go on, you get those fingers really active, so to our luck, G major and F major are going to be pretty much a carbon copy in terms of fingering, even the finger gap, the note gap, displacement would be the same, so let's consider F, so the lick would be same fingering, you want to go to the root first with your middle finger, again it's pretty efficient, then the left hand does its thing, you can break it down and then figure out the cross, repeat, speed, your finger should feel confident and not slippery, get that grip, the more you practice you'll feel more confident and you'll get more grip on the piano, so what about G major, root is on G, same fingering, so right hand 3 plus 5, left hand 5 plus 3 fingering, let's put that together with both hands, G, D, E, G, A, B, D, E, G, again, D, E, G, A, B, D, E, G, G, octave, right, so keep that repeat, repetition going, this will definitely improve your pentatonic capability, let's now journey forward to D major, slightly different fingering, let me break it down first, start with your middle in the right hand, you just have one cross to do, very similar to the E major we learnt earlier, D, A, B, D, E, F sharp, A, B, D, D, pretty easy, start with your middle, pretty much the same fingering, D, cross here I guess, that seems to be efficient, what about the left hand, so I would start with my index finger, index and then you could cross over your ring finger, so you don't have to cross again, some people may also go, you know that middle finger cross I don't recommend because it feels very slippery at times, so ring finger cross if you feel slippery on the hand, especially the left hand, so middle and index in the left, just left hand, index, ring, index, right hand, middle, let's put that to guess slowly, try to sing along, singing gets the confidence, there we go, right A major is very similar to D major, I'll show you the right hand, so you could go pretty much the same fingering, 3 calling it 3 plus 5 fingering and the left would go starting with the index, pretty similar to D, actually very similar to D, almost the same, I would go with the same fingering as D, index, ring, repeat, let's put the two hands together now, a bit slowly, don't forget to cross the ring, cross the ring there in the left hand, there we go, little fast, again, if you're not getting both hands you can always do the pulse in the left hand, work your way towards the right hand, then maybe do the up simple 5th chord in the left hand and build towards the left hand, it'll still be a good independence exercise as you can see from the interactions of the notes, this will boost your independence, so even if you're not getting the fingering in both hands, play a chord in the right hand, simple 5th chord or play a simple pulse in the left hand and the right hand will do its thing, do the Stevie Wonder lick, there we go, very good way to develop your independence or you can put it together, this takes some practice, again, play it at speed, so you know the fingers are correct, so let's move forward to the next scale, D flat major, also known as C sharp, I'm calling it D flat, the fingering is rather easy if you think about it, so we'll go, so I'm almost on my 3-5 fingering but rather than that I will do 4 here in this cluster, then cross my ring, pinky on top like this and then back, whole story of the left on D flat, repeat because of the anomaly of D flat you have to play like this, but the left hand is rather easier, come to think of it, you'll just do one of the old fingerings we've already discussed, starting on the middle finger, all 5 fingers here, it's more of a 5 plus 3 fingering, so the starting finger is very important and also the crossing point, let's put that together with the right as well, remember the right hand is 4 plus 4 in that sense, so this is D flat, actually pretty easy come to think about it, because you get a lot of grip playing these black notes in the crossing, so practice it, you may not be used to this scale, so give it some time, let's move forward, so we have 3 more scales to go, E flat, so let's look at E flat, pretty easy again, you start with your middle finger, so with E flat and A flat what happens is you start with this kind of precarious point where the middle will begin and then immediately your thumb will tuck under, so something like, you keep your middle there, so you're just kind of bringing the index for the B flat for the 5 of the scale and you end with your pinky and then thumb, middle but you kind of cross the index to the left side of the thumb and keep your thumb here, but could you have done it another way, you can even do it in the normal 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 fingering but I am considering this kind of adds to speed in some way and just to add some variety to the party as well, let's now add the left to the party, just one important crossover moment you have to figure out, now you could cross, this is fine, if you cross your middle there, index thumb, index pinky or you can save a step of crossing by going, by you going your ring, however for E flat when I play I may interchange between middle and ring, so you can just see with the two hands together, we've put the suggested fingering, at least the one which is working for me, in the notation you could check it out, so start with your index and then things go forward, back, don't forget the triplet vibe, okay so that was our E flat major, A flat major, pretty easy again, so for A flat you can go, you can go a 4 here and another 4 here and then back, probably ending with the ring finger on top, that works for me, so these 4, then cross, one more time slowly, right, then let's do left, okay left hand would go, I think the left hand we can rely on the usual fingering, the 5 plus 3 fingering, so whole story man, build up speed, build up speed, try it a few more times than normal, try to recover and loop it if possible, so that was E flat and A flat, now let's do the B's and wind up the lesson, B flat major first of all and then after that we'll do B major, so B flat major, 2 flats, so pretty much the 3 plus 5 fingering would work, I think that would work and even the left hand the 5 plus 3 should work, B flat's pretty easy, come to think of it, that's B flat and last but not least, let's look at B major, B major scale has 5 sharps, namely F sharp, C sharp, G sharp, D sharp and A sharp, so let's do the lick on B major, only right hand first, B major is slightly tricky for the pentatonic, at least for me, I'll show you the lick on B and then I'll show you the challenge as well, you'll have to kind of do a little bit of a, what do you call it, semicircle movement with your wrist for B which makes it very unique for this lick, so I would do, I'll have to cross my thumb somewhere, so I'll have to cross it on that black note which is a bit weird, usually we always cross our thumb on the whites but what seems to be working for me, that's giving me that speed, now let's try a few of the conventional strategies, you can do the 3 plus 5 as well but I feel there's too much of clutter happening here to cross your thumb, so you'd rather go cross your thumb on that F sharp, let me know what you think in the comments, B major is pretty debatable, come to think of it but we are notating it as middle, index, middle, thumb, index, middle, thumb, index, ring, back to thumb, so this gives me the speed I think and I make minimal errors, now the left hand I think is on the easier side, you can do the usual 5 meets 3 fingering I guess, yeah that kind of works, so the right hand with that kind of extra double crossing technique, the left hand will go the usual traditional way, putting that together, right guys so that was Isn't She Lovely, the major pentatonic scale lick which Stevie Wonder plays at the very end where the whole section kind of gangs up and plays that together, you should listen to the original song without fail because you hear that lick very often and there are a lot of covers also of the song and as I told you at the beginning, I thought that this lick would be a very good challenge for you to practice your major pentatonic scale and the major pentatonic scale and the pentatonic scales in general are strangely enough for us pianists, the things we don't practice very often but yet the things we need to use most often in songs, we don't use the major and minor linear motions that often especially in pop, rock and contemporary music, we use the pentatonic a lot more for the melodies, so the pentatonic needs your fingering to be a lot more capable and we decided for some reason to play it with both the hands which is a bit tricky come to think of it, so I'll be completely fine if you can do it with one hand playing the tune and the other hand holding the pulse or a chord or a simple kind of a movement, so the notation is available with suggested fingerings on our Patreon page, do consider heading over there and supporting us for just five dollars a month and if you found the lesson useful, don't forget to hit that subscribe button and turn that bell icon for regular notifications, cheers and catch you in the next one.