The Music Scale

So, you're curious to learn about forming scales... In this section I'll explain all about scales and more important what you could do with it.

Why Bother Studying Scales?

1. First of all you need to know that popular music and most of the "Classical music" are both built out of scales. That means that when you start to study a new piece you you'd be able to find you way more quickly if you recognize its scale. You'll be familiar with the nature of the piece.

2.Chords are made out of scales too. Every chord holds a hint to the scale from which it comes from. Knowing the scale will help us a great deal to know how the chord function in the music we're playing.

3. Playing piano by ear - Knowing the scales along with a good musical intuition is the code to play melodies by ear.

4. Improvising - Scales are great improvising tools. We can use them to improvise in a challenging manner. I'll talk about this later...

5. Exercising - Scales are great for practicing your technique and concentration.

Just a reminder... A half step or a half tone is the distance from one key on the keyboard to the next adjacent key. It doesn't matter whether it's a black key or a white key. A whole step is the distance as two half steps.
That's how we can measure the music scales.

Question:

What is the distance between B and C? B and C#?

The Major Music Scale

This music scale is made out of eight notes which happen to be all white.
C is its root tone.
The distance between C and D is one step/tone(C-C#-D).
The distance between D and E is one step/tone too.

If we keep measuring this is what we get...

As a matter of fact we can now say that the major scale is built out of this formula.

W's represtent a whole step and h's represent a half step.

If so can you try to find G major on the piano?
Try to find D major as well. Start on the the first note and follow the formula.

Click here to see if you got it right and to continue in our scales tutorial.