Piano scale practice with fingering
Scales are the raw material of improvising and of technique. Chord Drills lets you play scales on your MIDI keyboard and shows what you play on an on-screen keyboard, with fingering numbers and wrong notes in red.
24 scales and modes
- The seven modes of the major scale: Ionian (major), Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian (natural minor) and Locrian.
- Melodic minor and its modes: Dorian ♭2, Lydian ♯5, Lydian dominant, Mixolydian ♭6, Locrian ♮2 and the altered scale.
- Harmonic minor and Phrygian dominant.
- Pentatonic major and minor, and the blues scale.
- Symmetric scales: whole tone and both diminished scales (half–whole and whole–half).
- Bebop dominant and bebop major.
How it works
- Play the scale: the app names a scale and a root, and you play it note by note. Choose up, down, or up and down, one or two octaves, and right hand, left hand or both hands together.
- Live keyboard: every note you play is shown. Correct notes light up and stay as progress, wrong notes turn red while you hold them. The octave does not matter, so you can play in the range that suits you.
- Fingering: fingering numbers for the next note are shown for the common scales. For some unusual scales no fingering is stored, and the app then shows none.
- Name the scale: a second mode shows a scale and you pick the right name, which helps you recognise scales by their notes and intervals.
- Learn mode: for every scale and root you see the intervals, the keyboard with fingering, the notation, a short description of the sound and typical chords.
Both hands together
With “both hands” you play every note twice, in two different octaves, as parallel motion. The keyboard on screen gets wider and shows the fingering of both hands, marked LH and RH. The app checks that you play the note in two octaves but it cannot tell which hand pressed which key.
A practice plan
- Start with the scales you know, hands separately, slowly and evenly.
- Add the second hand, then two octaves.
- Use the metronome and raise the tempo in small steps.
- Learn one new mode per week, and play it over its typical chord.
- Use the name mode to recognise scales by their notes and intervals.
Related: random chord generator and sight reading practice.