Many years ago on my first website I created a story about the superhero scales to help students who were struggling to remember the key signatures in their scales.

I’ve used something similar in my music studio ever since – so I decided to remake it for my new blog! Check it out below.

The superhero scales all go into a fish and chip shop and order some food. The first letter of each food name reminds students which sharps or flats are in the scale (e.g. Superhero G Major goes into the shop and orders Fish – for F sharp).

Sometimes it works even better if it is personalised to the student. In this case I’ll ask them to think of someone they know with the same letter name as the scale. So if learning D major they might remember “Dad went in to the fish and chip shop and had ‘Fish and Chips‘!”.

One student told me her Auntie was a bit strange! So we made her into Auntie A Minor who went into the fish and chip shop and only had a plate of ‘Gherkins‘!

Here is the story and I’ve used the scales from the ABRSM grade one piano exam …