Half steps are movement from one key to the very next key, skipping nothing. Playing a string of half steps just means playing all the notes on the keyboard. Like this:
To play this scale, first find your “piano hand” (link here). Then play half steps moving up the keyboard, all with your tall middle finger. Listen to the sound, and how it makes you feel. Ask yourself, do any of the notes sound like “home”, like a good place to stop?
Do you feel the tension? Every note sounds like there’s one more after it … then one more … then one more … You never quite “arrive.” It’s like a spring slowly tightening, you keep expecting it to snap but it never does. This is what half steps “feel like,” and it’s how they are used in music. Half steps “pull” towards the next note, so they create tension, create direction.
Now, whole steps. Two halves make a whole, so two half steps make a whole step. One way to visualize this is to remember that every whole step has exactly ONE note in the middle. Here are a few:
Do you see the note in between every whole step pair? Sometimes it’s a black note, but sometimes it’s a white note.
Start on C. Find your piano hand, and play C with your tall middle finger. Play a whole step higher with the same finger. And another whole step. And another. Keep playing only whole steps all the way up the keyboard. The notes you play will look like this:
See that pattern? You are alternating between groups of 3 white notes (C, D, E) and 3 black notes. Play it again, with your tall middle finger, and listen to the sound. What does it feel like? Ask yourself the same question we asked about half steps: do any of the notes sound like “home”, like a good place to stop?
It’s a very dreamy sound. TV shows used to use a rising whole step scale like this to introduce a dream or memory sequence. And like the half step scale, no single note really feels securely like “home.” However, it doesn’t feel tense like the half step scale. It feels floaty, dreamy, weightless, untethered.
To really explore evocativeness of this scale, try this: find your piano hand, then place the three long fingers (pointer, middle, ring) of one hand on the three white key group C-D-E, and the three long fingers of your other hand on the three black group. Play from the lowest note to the top, and when you get to the top move to the next higher CDE and 3-black-key group on the keyboard. Like this:
This is a useful piano technique, crossing hands to move up and down the piano.
For even more magic, play while holding down the right-most pedal (damper pedal) with your right foot. Try playing loud, soft, changing from loud to soft, changing from loud to soft, going up the keyboard, going down the keyboard … be creative, and listen to the soundscape you are creating!