E major scale, notes and fingering.

The E major scale is E, F#, G#, A, B, C# and D#, then E again at the top. It has 4 sharps in its key signature (F#, C#, G#, D#), and four of its seven notes are black keys. Its relative minor is C# minor. In steps it goes whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half, the same pattern as every major scale.

How to play E major on piano

1. Find E. E is the white key just right of the group of two black keys.
2. Click Right hand and Two octaves. The circles on the keyboard show the finger for each note, starting with finger 1 on E. Finger 1 is the thumb.
3. Press Play scale to hear the scale go up and come back down. Up plays only the way up and Down only the way down. Change Speed if it is too quick.
4. Click Left hand. The left hand plays one octave lower and starts with finger 5 on E.
5. Click One octave to see only the first eight notes, E to E, with the fingers for that run.
6. Under the keyboard, Play on a chord card plays the three-note chord built on that note, such as E on E and B on B.
7. Open Note names. Choose Sharps or Flats to see the black keys written the other way, for example F# as Gb.

The notes, one by one

Worked example: the right hand starts on E4 on this page. That key is 5 semitones below A4, so on a piano tuned to A4 = 440 Hz its frequency is 440 × 2^(-5/12), which is about 329.63 Hz. The top E, one octave higher, doubles that to about 659.26 Hz. Counting the steps in between, 2 + 2 + 1 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 1 = 12 semitones. The fifth note, B, is 7 of them above the root.

Key signature of E major

E major has 4 sharps: F#, C#, G# and D#. Sharps are always added in the same order, F C G D A E B, so a signature with four sharps uses the first four of them. Written once at the start of the staff, they apply to every F, C, G and D in the piece, in every octave.

To see why, go up from E by whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half. The notes that land on black keys are number 2, 3, 6 and 7 of the seven, and they are written F#, G#, C# and D#. Each letter name is used once in a scale, so the marks go on F, C, G and D, and the signature lists exactly those letters.

What is particular about E major

E major has four sharps: F#, G#, C# and D#. The black keys fall on the second, third, sixth and seventh notes, so the scale has two pairs of black keys with two white keys between them. The first pair, F# and G#, belongs to the group of three. The second pair, C# and D#, is the whole group of two. D# is the leading note, a half step under the top E.

Fingering for both hands

The usual teaching fingering for E major in the right hand is 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 1 for the first octave, and for two octaves 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5. In the left hand it is 5 4 3 2 1 3 2 1 for the first octave, and for two octaves 5 4 3 2 1 3 2 1 4 3 2 1 3 2 1. The right thumb lands on E and A and the left thumb on B and E; all of those are white keys. Coming down, use the same fingers in reverse order. Other fingerings exist, and a teacher may change them to suit your hand, so treat this as the standard starting point.

Chords in E major

Stack every other note of the scale and you get a three-note chord on each degree. In every major key the pattern is the same: major on I, IV and V, minor on ii, iii and vi, and diminished on vii. In E major that gives E, F#m, G#m, A, B, C#m and D#dim. The three major chords, E, A and B, are the ones that fit most simply together, for example in the order E, A, B, E.

A way to practise it

Play the two black-key pairs on their own first, F# G# and then C# D#, then add the white keys between them. In the right hand the pairs are played by fingers 2 and 3, and 3 and 4. Count out loud: one, two, three for the first group of notes, and one, two, three, four for the second.

A common slip

Playing D instead of D#. Check the ending: the last two notes before the top E should be only a half step apart.

Nearby keys

The relative minor of E major is C# minor. It uses the same notes and the same key signature, starting on C#. The parallel minor, E minor, starts on the same note but has 1 sharp in its key signature.

The key a fifth higher is B major and the key a fifth lower is A major. E major shares all but one note with each of them. Keys next to each other on the circle of fifths have signatures that differ by one mark. On this site the neighbours here are A major and B major.

When the scale is steady, play it with the metronome and compare it with the virtual piano. For other scale types, such as minor, modes and pentatonic, use the scale finder.