On the piano, the basic fingering involves putting the thumb on the white notes and finger 3 on the black notes.

The fingering is particularly important as the scales are preparing players to be able to cope with potentially very fast passages. The chromatic scale is often played when learning an instrument such as the piano or the guitar as it develops good technique and prepares students to be able to play pieces that require this. If you are notating it yourself you just need to remember that each note letter of the scale (A-B-C-D-E-F-G) should have at least one note written and no more than 2.įor example you could write G natural and G sharp or G flat and G natural, but not G flat, G natural and G sharp!! However, when it is used in a composition the notation of the accidentals will depend upon the context of the key in which it is written. Usually, the convention is that an ascending chromatic scale is written in sharps and a descending scale is written with flats (as shown above). In this next example, you can see that the chromatic scale begins on F, but includes exactly the same notes as the previous example starting on C: It doesn’t matter which note you begin on, the chromatic scale will always include the same 12 notes!

The chromatic scale is very different to the major and minor keys scales in that it does not have a tonic.

Here is the chromatic scale (both ascending and descending) beginning on C: It can be described as either “ascending” or “descending” depending on the direction of movement. The chromatic Scale consists of 12 notes – each note is separated from the next by the interval of a semitone (or half step).

C chromatic scale