Grade Three Scales

Use the media player on this page to play your scales along with me!

There is much more movement in these scales. E minor melodic moves right up to the forth position! You will be tempted to play these scales in the first position, but it is good practice to explore higher up the neck and the scales are actually more comfortable to play with the suggested fingering.

You have your first double stop scales in grade three. This means you must play two notes at once. Take your time, make sure you are using the correct fingers and practise moving between the first two notes. Only add the third note when you are happy with the first two. Gradually add the notes until you can comfortably play all the double stops, up and down.

Grade three also introduces the broken chord. This is simillar to an arpeggio but the notes are played in groups of three, called triplets. You are asked to make the notes over-ring. This means that you hold the left hand fingers on a number of notes when playing so the notes ring into each other. The end result is very pretty.

The arpeggios are no different to the earlier grades except you are not told that they must not over-ring. You must therefore lift your fingers off each note to stop it ringing into the next. However, you must still achieve a smooth, legato effect.

Some of the scales are fingers only, others use thumb and fingers combined (thumb for the first octave and the fingers for the second), make sure you always practise this!

• Flash Cards for Grade 3 Scales
• Flash Cards for Grade 3 Arpeggios