The Major Scale

nebe's picture

When you are new to music it is sometimes a bit difficult to get started without knowing some basic music theory. Music theory can be usefull in many occasions and offers a great opportunity for you to test these theories and get familiar with what their end result sounds like.

I will start my first lesson with the Major Scale. If we inspect the C major scale we will imediatly notice that it is all the white keys on a piano or keyboard. It has no sharps or flats.

* Sharps and Flats is all the black keys on the keyboard.

And consists of the following notes:

C D
E
F
G A
B

* Please note that there is 7 individual notes in the scale.

If you know the chromatic scale or in other words all the keys on the piano. Each note is a semitone appart and looks like this:

C C#/Db D D#/Eb E F F#/Gb G G#/Ab A A#/Bb B

* Please note that there is 12 individual notes in this scale.

You can deduct the following formula from it:

R W W h W W W h
C D E F G A B C

R: is the root note
W: is a whole note or 2 semitones
H: is a half note or 1 semitone

You can also remember it like this:

R 1 1 ½ 1 1 1 ½

Now what do you do with all that info?

Well let us change the root note to A.

We will use our formula.

R W W h W W W h
A B C# D E F# G# A

There we have all the notes for the A major scale.