How Scale Grading Works
You play a scale once on a MIDI keyboard. Four things get measured, for each hand separately, and the result names the notes where it went wrong rather than handing you a number. Here is exactly what is measured, and - just as important - what a keyboard cannot tell about your playing.
Reviewed August 2026. Written for exam students, AMEB included; for the scales and tempos your own grade requires, check your current syllabus, which is the document that decides it. Not affiliated with AMEB.
Try it on a scaleThe four measurements
A graded take reports four numbers per hand. They are deliberately separate, because they fail independently and each one has a different fix.
| Measure | What it is | What a low score is telling you |
|---|---|---|
| Pitch | How many of your notes belong to the scale you chose. | Wrong notes - and it names them. Usually one accidental missed consistently, which is a reading problem rather than a technique one. |
| Timing | How even the gaps between notes are. | The scale is lumpy. Almost always the thumb turn, and almost always in one direction only. |
| Dynamics | How your loudness compares with the level you were aiming for. | Either the whole scale drifts louder or softer, or single notes pop out. The thumb is the usual offender. |
| Note length | How consistent the sounding length of each note is. | Notes are being clipped or held unevenly - the difference between a scale that sounds joined and one that sounds like separate keys being pressed. |
Each one opens into a chart of the individual notes, so a single bad note is visible as a spike rather than hidden inside an average. That matters more than the score: an average of 92 can mean ninety-two per cent of everything was slightly off, or that one note was badly wrong and the rest were perfect. Those need completely different practice.
Each hand, scored separately, from one take
You play with both hands. Each hand is measured on its own.
This is the measurement that changes what you practise, and it exists because the two hands do not stumble in the same place. In C major going up, the right hand passes its thumb under between the third and fourth notes (E to F). The left hand crosses its third finger over between the fifth and sixth (G to A). Two different events, at two different moments, in a scale most people practise as one thing.
Played together, both crossings land inside the same run and you hear one slightly uneven scale. Scored separately, you find out it was the left hand at the fifth note, and you can go and practise that instead of playing the whole scale again.
There is more on the method behind this in hands separately versus hands together.
Named faults, at named notes
Under the scores is a short list headed What to work on. Instead of a grade, it names what went wrong and where: the note where the scale dragged, the note that rushed, the one that jumped out louder than its neighbours.
This is the part that makes a score usable. "Timing 84" tells you to practise more. "Dragged at the fourth note, ascending" tells you what to practise, and how to know when you have fixed it.
Two more things are reported when the scale calls for them:
- Chord synchronisation - when notes are meant to sound together, how close together they actually landed. A chord that is spread by a few milliseconds sounds rolled rather than solid, and it is very hard to hear in your own playing.
- Trill analysis - which note the alternation started on, how even it is, and whether the two notes are balanced in weight or one of them is consistently heavier. The starting note matters: in Baroque and Classical music a trill conventionally begins on the note above the written one, and that is very hard to check by ear at speed.
What this cannot see
Worth stating plainly, because a tool that claims everything is not worth trusting on anything. A MIDI keyboard reports which key went down, when, how fast, and when it came back up. Everything measured above is built from those four facts. Which means none of the following is visible, and none of it is claimed:
- Your hands. Posture, wrist height, curved or flat fingers, tension in the forearm. A keyboard has no idea where your body is.
- Your fingering. The app cannot tell which finger played a note, so it cannot tell you that you used the wrong one. It can only tell you the result was uneven.
- Tone. On an acoustic piano, tone is a real thing produced by how the key is moved. A MIDI velocity number is a single measurement of speed, not a description of sound.
- Musicality. Whether the scale was shaped or expressive. It measures evenness, which is a different thing, and mostly the thing scales are for.
Dynamics and note length also need a real MIDI keyboard: they are built from how hard and how long each key was held, so they are unavailable if you are playing on the computer keys.
Nothing here has been checked against a human examiner's marking. These are measurements of what you played, not a prediction of what an examiner would say.
You do not touch anything
There is no record button. Start playing and the take starts; stop and it ends and grades itself. Play again and that is the next take. Your hands never leave the keys, which is the difference between practising and operating an app.
Play a scale and see