Scale exercises

Chordzy's exercises are scales and triad chords in every major and minor key, played on your own MIDI keyboard. They are short on purpose. A scale teaches you where a key's sharps and flats sit under your hand, and it trains your ear while it does. A chord drill builds speed and dexterity with no song to get in the way.

Every scale uses the same seven-note formula, and every triad is built from the same basic pattern. Learn it in C and you already know most of it in F sharp. Each set covers 30 keys, 15 major and 15 minor, because keys with two names get both. F sharp major and G flat major are the same notes, but they are written differently.

A scale exercise starts with one octave. Then it runs two octaves up and back down. After that come the same two octaves in contrary motion, where the hands move in opposite directions and meet again. A chord exercise plays the triad on each of the scale's seven notes, going up the scale and back down. Arpeggios follow. The last segments are inversions: first and second on their own, then every inversion of each chord in a row.

Grading works note by note. Chordzy listens to what your keyboard sends and checks each note against the music on screen. An exercise is split into short segments. The first one starts with the right hand alone, then the left, and the music waits for each right note. After that every segment is played with both hands at 60% of the tempo, then 90%, then full speed. That is the standard rising from intermediate to upper intermediate. Scales start at 88 BPM, a tempo picked to roughly match the ABRSM grades.

Your score is the share of notes you hit, less what your timing lost. A wrong extra note costs you too. How hard you press and when you let go do not count yet; those come in at the advanced levels.

The exercises open in the Chordzy player on this page. On a computer it reads a keyboard in Chrome, Edge, Opera or Firefox. Safari cannot, so use another browser on a Mac, or the desktop app. If your keyboard does not show up, MIDI keyboards has the fix.

To see the theory before you play it, music theory has a page for every scale and its triads, and piano scales collects them in one place. Keep time with the metronome.