B-flat Major Scale & Arpeggio

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph
Hoffman
and in this lesson we're continuing our
climb up the ladder a fourth to the key
of B-flat major, and in the key of B-flat
major, we're going to learn how to play a
two octave scale and arpeggio. Let's come
to the piano to start learning.
Here I have our C major one octave scale, drawn
in two adjacent tetra chords. Now, so you
know that C major is at the bottom of
our ladder of fourths because it has
zero sharps or flats. Now, if we would go
up a fourth to F-major, and you'll see
that when we go up that fourth we have
to add a flat. So F-major has one flat
which is B-flat. We have to use that flat
because MI and FA must be a half step
to be a major scale, so we need that half
step there, also TI and DO need a half step, but
E and F are already naturally a half step
apart. Now, what's another fourth up from
F? One, two, three, four, a perfect fourth
above F is B-flat. So as we go up the
ladder, we're adding flats. So now in the
key of B-flat we have two flats. A B-flat
and we add an E-flat again to keep that
half step. It might look to you like we
have three flats, but remember this is a
B-flat and so we've already counted that
once. It's the same note as this one. So
we have two unique flats in the key of
B-flat major. Let's see what that looks
like on the ladder of fourths. On the
ladder fourths we have C major at the
bottom, we go up a fourth to F major with
one flat, B-flat, and then if we go up
another fourth to B-flat major, we get
two flats, B-flat and E-flat.
Now today we're going to bring your skills to an
even higher level by not just playing a
one octave scale, but we're going to go a
full two octaves with one hand at a time.
Let me show you what that would look
like. For the left hand playing a B-flat
major two octave scale.
So you'll notice I went all the way from
this B-flat, and then I went up to this
B-flat one octave up, and I kept going
all the way up two octaves higher, landed
my highest note on this B-flat and then
I came back down through that B-flat, all
the way back down the distance of two
octaves to my starting B-flat.
Try playing these three B-flats with me just
to kind of get the lay of the land for
which notes we'll be playing. Play this
B-flat. Here's my middle C, so with your
left hand play B-flat, B-flat, one
octave up, B-flat, two octaves up, then
back down two octaves. Let's do that
again.
So start, up one octave, up two octaves,
back down an octave, down two octaves.
Good, now let's look at the unique
fingering. You might have noticed I
didn't start on my finger 5, and the
reason for that is because we're
starting and ending this scale on black
keys. The black keys, when you're playing
fast scales, don't fit very well into the
fingers when you try to play the thumb.
So remember, when you play the thumb on a
black key, you have to shift your hand
forward. Now, when you're playing scales
really fast you don't want to take the
time to shift your hand forward and back
as much, so it's a faster way to play a
scale using a lot of black keys when you
have your thumb not land on the black
keys. So let me show you a special
fingering that will help you play this
scale the best. When you're playing a two
octave scale, you want to think in groups
of three and four, and so I've
color-coded these groups to make it
easier. You'll notice each group starts
with a black key, and we're going to
learn our left hand fingering first
because it's a little bit easier than
the right hand fingering for this scale.
You're going to start with a 3 2
1, and then finger 4 is going to
glide over, and then you'll play a 4
3 2 1, again starting with the
black key then three whites for a group
of four, and then the pattern starts over
again. A group of three, 3 2 1
On B-flat C D, black, white, white, finger 4
glides over, 4 3 2 1, and then
we end with a finger 3 on top. If we
wanted to keep going up we could. You can
actually extend this all the way up.
As we get more advanced we'll practice
three or even four octave scales. Now, to
get used to these groupings, we're going
to practice this scale and kind of an
interesting or an unusual way. You're
going to actually press all three keys
of that group at the same time. So find
this B-flat, a full octave plus a
note below your middle C, using fingers
3 2 1 play B-flat C and D, all
kind of smash them down all as a group. Be
sure to use your good piano posture, all
your joints ...