Scales and Chords Are Fun, Book 2 (Minor): Piano Book

This book bridges the gap between mechanical scale work and actual music by pairing every set of fingerings with a short repertoire piece. Students see immediately why the fingering patterns matter, and teachers get a cohesive resource that eliminates the need to hunt for supplementary material across different sources.

Purposeful and grounded. The repertoire pieces anchor each scale study in real musical language rather than leaving fingering work feeling disconnected from how music actually sounds. There's a quiet satisfaction in watching a scale suddenly come alive as a melody.

Intermediate pianists ready to build facility with minor keys and harmonic structures beyond major scales. This book works especially well for students who respond better to musical context than abstract technique, since every scale study connects immediately to a short piece.

• Practice the scale fingering slowly and deliberately before moving to the repertoire piece; the muscle memory you build will transfer directly into the composition.
• Use consistent tempo markings across both the scale and its related piece so the technical work reinforces the musical context.
• Record yourself playing each scale and its paired repertoire piece back-to-back to hear how fluency in the fingering pattern shapes your interpretation of the music.
• Focus on evenness across the octave break; many students rush or hesitate when crossing from one octave to the next, and these two-octave scales are designed to smooth that transition.

Assign these systematically throughout the year as part of your student's core technical work, moving through one or two new minor keys per week. The included repertoire pieces make natural choices for student recitals, giving students the experience of performing music they've already mastered technically.

• Two-octave harmonic minor scale fingering (all 12 minor keys)
• Minor key arpeggio patterns (i, iv, V, V7 chords) with proper hand positioning
• Recognition and navigation of harmonic minor tonality across multiple keys
• Coordinating scale fingering with musical phrasing in short compositions
• Octave-break evenness and finger independence