B Major Scale (Piano)

The B major scale is B, C♯, D♯, E, F♯, G♯, A♯, B: five sharps (F♯, C♯, G♯, D♯, A♯), two white keys and five black ones. It sounds bright and settled, and it ends where it started.

Everything about the B major scale is on this page. The notes and their degree names, the fingering for each hand with the thumb crossings marked, the key signature and the keys next to it, the chords the scale makes, and a short practice order. Click the sheet music to play it in Chordzy and have each note checked as you go.

Ascending, the B major scale is one octave up and back:

Up: B, C♯, D♯, E, F♯, G♯, A♯, B Down: B, A♯, G♯, F♯, E, D♯, C♯, B

Each note has a degree number and a name. The names are worth knowing because every teacher and every theory book uses them, and they are the same seven words in every key.

The step pattern is whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. That pattern is what makes it major; start it on any other note and you get that note's major scale.

Standard fingering for the B major scale, one octave, ascending. The finger is written before the note (1 is the thumb).

Right hand: 1 (B), 2 (C♯), 3 (D♯), 1 (E), 2 (F♯), 3 (G♯), 4 (A♯), 5 (B) Left hand: 4 (B), 3 (C♯), 2 (D♯), 1 (E), 4 (F♯), 3 (G♯), 2 (A♯), 1 (B)

Descending, each hand uses the same fingers in reverse. Two octaves: right hand 1-2-3-1-2-3-4-1-2-3-1-2-3-4-5, left hand 4-3-2-1-4-3-2-1-3-2-1-4-3-2-1.

The thumb stays on white keys: B and E in the right hand, E in the left. The black keys fall under fingers 2, 3 and 4 in the right hand, which is where a long finger wants to be. In the right hand the thumb goes under after D♯, and in the left hand finger 4 crosses over after E. Slow those moments down until the note after the turn is no louder than the one before it. Everything else in the scale is a hand moving sideways.

B major is written with five sharps (F♯, C♯, G♯, D♯, A♯), in that order at the start of every line. From then on every F, C, G, D and A on the page is sharp, in every octave, until a natural sign says otherwise.

The keys nearest to it:

G♯ minor is the one to watch. It has the same signature as B major, so the signature cannot tell you which of the two you are in; the first bass note and the last chord usually can. C♭ major is not a different scale, only a different spelling of this one, and this spelling is the one you will see in print.

Take every other note of the B major scale and you get its chords. The four below carry most of the songs written in the key.

Play B, then E, then F♯, then B again, one chord per bar with the left hand on the root. That is the scale turned into music, and it is the first thing to do once the notes are secure. There is more: all seven triads in B major triad chords, and the sevenths and progressions in the key of B major.

A scale you can hear is worth more than one you can only play. Three drills, at the piano, two minutes each.

Sing degrees 1, 3, 5 and 8 in B major: B, D♯, F♯, B. Then play them and see how close you were. Most people are flat on the third the first week.

Play 7 then 1, slowly. A♯ sits a half step below B and leans on it. Play A♯ and hold it; your ear will finish the phrase before your hand does. That lean is what a major key feels like.

Play four or five notes from the scale, sing them back, then play them again. When you can do that with your eyes shut, the key of B major is in your head and not only in your hands.

Ten minutes a day for a week, in this order.

1. Right hand, B to B, one octave. Stop on the thumb turn after D♯ and play it again until the note after it is no louder than the one before.
2. Left hand, the same octave. Finger 4 starts it and finger 1 ends it.
3. Hands together. Both thumbs land on E at the same moment, and nowhere else. Feel for that note and the rest of the octave falls into place around it.
4. The same octave in long-short rhythm, then short-long. Uneven fingers show up in the second one and fix themselves in the first.
5. Two octaves, once the single octave stays even. Louder going up, softer coming down.

Then click the sheet music above to play the B major scale in Chordzy, in the browser or in the app, and see each wrong finger as it happens rather than a week later.

Some of what has been written in B major:

• Chopin, Nocturne Op. 9 No. 3
• Brahms, Piano Trio No. 1
• Bach, the Prelude and Fugue in B from Book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier

Listen to one of them with the scale in your ear and you will hear B as home from the first bar. That is the point of scale practice, and the rest is fingers.