How to Read a D Flat Major Scale on a Piano Sheet

Learning the piano usually means starting with scales. Students must learn the names of the notes on the sheet music, and match them to the keys on the piano. Once you learn the C major scale, you can move on to other scales, including the D flat major scale.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Keyboard
• Sheet music

1. Look at the sheet music and identify the staff, a set of five parallel lines. Musical notes can be written on the lines or in the spaces between them. The symbol at the far left side of the staff resembles a capital letter G and is called the treble clef, or higher clef. It indicates that the second line of the staff marks the G note above middle C.

2. Study the five small symbols to the right of the treble clef. They're the key signature for the D flat scale. Each looks like a lowercase letter b and indicates that the note on the line or in the space it marks is flat. In order from left to right, these flats are B, E, A, D and G.

3. Hold your right hand in front of you, palm down. For fingering purposes on piano sheet music, your thumb is 1, your index finger is 2, your middle finger is 3, your ring finger is 4 and your pinky is 5. Each note on sheet music will have one of these numbers to tell you with which finger to play it.

4. Turn your attention back to the sheet music. The first note is a quarter note--a blacked-in note with a straight stem that counts as one beat in a time signature that has any number over 4. This note is under the lowest line of the staff, indicating that it's the D above middle C. From the key signature you know it's D flat, so it's the black key to the right of middle C on your keyboard. The number above or below it is a 2, indicating you should play it with your index finger.

5. Move your attention to the next note, on the first line of the staff. It's an E, and you know from the key signature that it's flat, too, so it's the next black key to the right. The number is a 3, so you play it with your middle finger.

6. View the rest of the scale, and compare it to the keyboard. The eight notes form an octave from the lower D to the higher D on the treble clef. They are D flat, E flat, F, G flat, A flat, B flat, C and D flat.

7. Understand the fingering for the D flat major scale. You'll use 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1 and 2. After you play the second note (E flat) with your middle finger, pass your thumb under your first two fingers to play the F. Your pinky isn't used in the D flat major scale, so after you play the B flat with your ring finger, pass your thumb under again to play the C, and then play the last D flat with your index finger again. Reverse the order of the fingering when you play the scale from the high D flat down to the D flat with which you started.

Tips & Warnings

• The notes indicated by the lines on the treble clef are, from the bottom to the top, E, G, B, D and F. A common mnemonic device to remember that is Every Good Boy Deserves Favors. The spaces on the treble clef are F, A, C and E--just remember FACE.
• When you play a major scale, you start with the first key, and then play a whole step up, whole step up, half step up, whole step, whole step, whole step and half step.
• A whole step is a step from one white key to the next white key if there's a black key between them, or from one black key to the next black key if there's a white key between them. A whole step can also be from a black key past a white key to the next black key, as in the step from E flat (black key) to F (white key). It's a whole step because of the white E key between the E flat and the F.