Saturday, November 4, 2023 | Uncategorized

I like to teach my beginner piano students pentascales. These are something not everyone has heard of so why do I do this? I’ll explain what pentascales are. They are the first 5 notes of the usual scales we are familiar with learning. This might be anything from C major to G minor. Pentascales are easier to learn than the full scale, and we certainly learn the whole 7 notes of each scale in good time, but for an early beginner, knowing your pentascales has many benefits. The pentascale contains 3 very important components of the key of that scale - the tonic, the mediant and the dominant note. These 3 notes make up the tonic triad and much of the music notation we read is made up of combinations of these 3 notes. Knowing these 3 notes in the most important and most used keys, makes understanding the structure of the music my students are reading easier, and therefore easier for them to learn.

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