G Minor Scales & Arpeggio

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph
Hoffman
and in this lesson we're going to learn
how to play the G minor scale and
arpeggio. Let's come to the piano to get
started. Here I have the B-flat major
scale drawn with two flats you'll recall.
B-flat and E-flat. G minor is the
relative of B-flat. You can see it has
the same two flats, B-flat and E-flat.
We've just shifted down a third to get
there to the relative minor, we always
just go down two steps down in the scale.
So, G minor, which is a relative of B-flat
major, same two flats B-flat and E-flat.
This would be the natural minor scale.
For harmonic minor, we take the seventh note,
which is always just a step below our
DO, and that note moves up a half step,
we raise it and that makes it harmonic
minor. So now we also have an F-sharp.
Let's try to play it. The G minor scale
and arpeggio uses the basic fingering,
which means in the right hand we're
going to have a group of three on G A B-flat. Try and play this with me.
So, take your fingers 1 2 3, play
that as a cluster, then the next group is
C D E-flat F. Remember there's no B. B is
not diatonic so we're never gonna play B
or E. They both became flat so don't even
think about these notes, okay, so let's
start again. A group of three ending
on B-flat, and then a group of four C D E-flat F,
and a group of three again, then a group
of four again, and then play your finger
5 on top with that G, then group of four,
a group of three, a group of four, a group
of three. Let's do it one more time, play
along with me. 1 2 3 on G A B-flat
Group of four, group of three, make sure
you're using good piano posture, group of
four, then play 5 on top, the group of four, group of three, group of four,
group of three. Good, now played one note
at a time, we have 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 This is the
natural minor scale. We come down, a group of four, group of three, 4 3.
So, what note does finger 4 play in
this scale?
If you said F you're correct.
F natural, so make sure that 4 always
plays F and only F. No other fingers
allowed to play F. So when you get to
that F make sure you've got a 4 there.
Practice this scale on your own, press
pause to do that, and whenever you play a
3 or a 4, say it out loud. 3 4
3 4 4 3 4 3 Press pause to practice that two octave scale
several times, then press play to go on.
Now let's try harmonic minor. We're gonna
go 3 4
So notice two black keys in a row. That
should feel a lot like that D minor
scale felt, where he had that B-flat to C-sharp, but now in G minor have that
E-flat to F.
3 4 4 3 4 3 Press
pause to work on the G harmonic minor
scale two octaves, then press play to go on.
Well let's try our left hand now. The
left hand also uses the basic fingerings.
We'll have 5 4 3 2 1 3 2 1 4 3
3 4
3 4
What note does finger 4 play?
If you said A you're correct. Make sure that
finger 4 always plays A and only A.
Press pause to work on the left hand two
octave G natural minor scale, then press
play to go on.
You guessed it, now we're going to do
harmonic minor. So we have 5 4
3 and there's the F-sharp 4 3
3 4
3 4 Careful to always alternate between
3 and 4 as you're crossing over
or thumb under. Press pause to work on
the G harmonic minor two octave scale,
then press play to go on.
Let's look at the G minor arpeggio now.
Remember, we are taking the I chord DO ME SO
Here's our I chord, and then we
just repeat that same chord up an octave,
and then we put DO on top. DO ME SO
DO ME SO DO, and then we come back
down the same notes. This arpeggio will
use our basic fingering, which is 1 2 3 1 2 3 5 3 2 1
3 2 1
Work on a smooth legato sound shifting
using your elbow and wrist to glide that
thumb under and easily glide back over
on the way down.
Press pause to work on that G minor
arpeggio, then press play to go on.
And now let's work on the left hand. So
basic fingering once again we have 5 4 2
1 4 2 1 2 4 1 2 4 5
Press pause to work on the
left hand two octave G minor arpeggio,
then press play to go on.
To finish today, let me show you a little
fun improvisation activity you can do in
G minor. Our left hand is going to play
an ostinato. An ostinato in music is a
repeating pattern, and for this pattern,
place your finger 1 on this ground G.
Here's my middle C, so about an octave
and a half down, and it's gonna go 1 2 3 4
1 2 3 4
Just stepping down half notes. Try it
with me.
Here we go, finger 1 on G, a 1 2 3
you have to do an E-flat here 2 3 4 ...