Generic scale question

When you play a scale up, like the D Major scale (I assume if it starts on the white key that makes it a major?) do you just reverse the keystrokes you played up in order to go down or do you apply the tone tone semitone tone tone tone semitone rule to go back down?

I ask because you'll hit different keys depending on what you do.

For example:

To go up:
D E F# G A B C# D

If you reverse this to go down the scale you're no longer following the tone, tone, semitone, etc. rule. If you were to follow that rule to go down you'd be playing:

D C Bflat A G F D# D

which isn't the same way you came up the scale and it doesn't sound the same. In his videos I think I see Andrew reversing the scale, but I'm not sure and I don't want to practice the incorrect way. By the way, can you tell I know nothing about the piano?

hi and welcome to forum sakelly ...yes just reverse D E F# G A B C# D
to come down scale ..also if you have a look round forum you will find very useful sites and links posted by other members ..which will give correct fingering on these scales ..i could find these links and post them ..but i think it better if you look for them and get familiar with this forum as there is a whole lot of info to be tapped so gd look and happy searching ...look forward to hearing from you again

Awesome, thanks Robin. I tried to search for this but couldn't find anything and the .pdf's didn't want to open for some reason.

Thanks again!

they are in the stickys in this section you just need to copy the link into your address bar and hit go !!!!!

By the way, "major" or "minor" doesn't have anything to do with starting on a white or a black key! They are just ways to arrange the "tones" and "semitones" within the octave.

And the reason for the scale to be played backwards is that a scale is actually a tonality, not an exercise! If you play the D major scale, you play all notes that belong to the D major tonality, i.e. D E F# G A B C#. Notes such as C, Bb, F and Eb are not a part of D major and therefore it would make no sense to play them in that case.

Consider a scale or a tonality as an arrangement of white and black keys rather than a suite of tones and semitones.