Piano scale explorer
See and hear any scale on a piano keyboard. Free, no account.
Pick a root and a scale type — major, minor, the seven modes, pentatonics, blues, and more — and see the notes, degrees, and shapes on a piano keyboard instantly.
| Degree | Interval | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Root | A |
| b3 | Minor 3rd | C |
| 4 | Perfect 4th | D |
| 5 | Perfect 5th | E |
| b7 | Minor 7th | G |
Five keys with no adjacent lit keys — every gap is at least two semitones wide. The two minor-3rd leaps (3 semitones each) bookend the tighter whole-step cluster in the middle, creating a resilient shape with no semitone tension at all.
Shares all five pitches with the Major Pentatonic of the relative major (e.g. A minor pent = C major pent). Add one key — the b5 — to get the Blues scale.
The minor pentatonic is the most widely used scale in rock, blues, and pop. Its five notes avoid all half-step tension, making every note sound safe over minor chord vamps. Box patterns on guitar make it immediately accessible for soloing.
How to use
- Choose a root and a scale. The page highlights the scale notes on a piano keyboard with degree colours and labels.
- Degree labels use standard accidental notation:
1 2 ♭3 3 4 ♯4 ♭5 5 ♯5 ♭6 6 ♭7 7. - The Play controls walk the scale up the keyboard at slow, medium, or fast speeds so you can hear the intervals as well as see them.
- Switch between 2 octaves (compact) and Full (88-key piano scrolled to the root) to study the same scale in context.
Tips
- Black-key patterns are a fingering map. Each scale has a characteristic black-key silhouette across the octave — once you recognise the pattern, transposing becomes a matter of moving the same shape, not relearning the scale.
- Practice scales in 3rds and 4ths, not just up and down. Skipping notes inside the scale forces you to know the pitches, not the muscle memory.
- For chord context inside this scale, open the piano chord viewer. The same scale on guitar lives at the guitar scale explorer.
KNOW THE SCALE, PLAY THE SCALE
Hear what you're looking at.
EasyJam generates piano phrases that fit this scale automatically. Free account.