G Major Scale & Arpeggio

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman.

Today we are going to be learning how to play the G major one octave scale and arpeggio.

Let's come to the piano to get started.

Let's take a quick look at our ladder of fifths to figure out how many sharps we're going to need for the G major scale.

We know that in C major we have zero sharps,

but now we're going up a fifth to G major, which gives us one sharp,

and that's an F-sharp. So let's check that out on the piano.

So we saw in our ladder of fifths that the f needs to be sharped to make G major,

and the reason for that is so we can have a half step here between TI and DO.

We already have a half step between MI and FA,

so this would build our G major scale.

Now, we're also going to be playing the arpeggio today. For an arpeggio, we have to take away RE and FA

and LA and TI.

So now we're just left with DO MI SO, and then hi DO SO MI DO.

So that builds our arpeggio.

Now let's try to play them.

Let's again start with the left hand. I like to start practicing my scales with my left hand because

I find that I'm actually better with my right hand. So I figure if I practice my left hand extra, it can maybe someday catch up.

So, let's start with the left hand and uh place your finger 5 on G,

and remember, the fingering is going to be 5 4 3 2 1. Use up all five fingers, then finger 3 is going to glide across

to E, and then finger 2 has to play that F-sharp, and then we made it up to G, then we'll step back down,

and then after I play finger 3, my finger 1, or thumb, is going to sneak under to D,

and then I can make it all the way back down. One more time without a pause.

Glide across.

Thumb sneaks under, back down to G. Now, before I let you try that on your own,

please note that when you play your finger 5, it should be playing near its tip, not flat.

This is a common problem for a lot of students, but what it does is it collapses the shape of your hand.

You want kind of a nice level shape here through your wrist,

and the top of your hand, which means your pinky needs to be playing in this shape.

Okay, press pause and try the G major scale with your left hand, then press play to go on.

Okay, now let's tackle the arpeggio.

Remember, for the arpeggio we start with finger 5, then our finger four is going to kind of reach over to B

so we're kind of skipping over the A. DO MI, now our finger 2 is on D and then our finger 1 can reach this high G.

Then finger 2 back to D, finger 4 on B, 5 on G.

5 4 2 1 2 4 5 is the fingering. DO MI SO DO SO MI DO.

Now, press pause and try the G major arpeggio on your own, then press play to go on.

Okay, now let's try that with the right hand. We're going to start with the G major scale.

Remember, for the right hand we do our group of three first,

thumb sneaks under, and then we have our group of five.

And during that group of five, our finger 4 is going to need to take care of that F-sharp.

So I'll show you once. We have 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 4 3 2 1 3 2 1

And then the arpeggio is 1 2 3 5 3 2 1.

Okay, press pause and try the G major scale and arpeggio with your right hand, then press play to go on.

Okay, now here's a metronome routine you can do to practice your G major scales and arpeggios.

Today I'm going to turn my metronome on to 108.

We're going to play one note per click.

I'm going to do a G major one octave scale and arpeggio.

I'm going to do the arpeggio twice for extra practice. Since the arpeggios are tricky, I'm going to

double the amount of practice I get on them. When I do the arpeggio, I'm going to go

like half notes. Twice as slow

as the scale, and that's to give you time to reach and position your fingers and have time to gather back.

So it's going to feel a little bit slow, but don't worry. Once you master it, we're going to be speeding this up.

So be patient and take your time to get the technique just right.

I'll demonstrate it once for you.

Here's G major.

Now slow motion arpeggio. 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2

Good, now finally for a super challenge,

I want to see if you can take an old song that we've learned, "Chumbara," and play it in the key of G major,

but only using one hand.

Now that you know how to do a one octave scale, when you get to the part that goes:

You can just use your scale fingering and go 1 5 4 3, sorry, 1 5 4 3 2 1 3 2 1,

and the ...