The Major Scale
A fundamental musical concept
Scales are used to create melodies, harmonies, and chord progressions. They are a fundamental musical concept.
The major scale is the basis for many other scales. These include the minor scales, pentatonic scales, and blues scales.
Learning the major scale is important to understand how music works and how to create music. It’s the most used scale in Western music.
For this story, I’ve used the terminology of Semitones and Whole Tones. These are the equivalent of Half Steps and Whole Steps.
The Major Scale is associated with happy cheerful music. This is because its intervals are all Whole Tones except for two Semitones. This gives the Major scale a bright and airy sound.
A scale is a sequence of notes arranged in order of pitch. They can either ascend or descend in pitch. Scales are named after their first note, known as the Root note or the Tonic note. For example, the major scale starting on a C note would be the C Major scale.
In music, an interval is the difference in pitch between two sounds. Scales are made up of intervals. A Semitone is the smallest interval in Western music. It is the distance between one note on a piano. A Whole Tone is the same as two Semitones. It is the distance between two notes played next to each other on a piano.
The Major Scale belongs to the family of Heptatonic Scales. These scales have seven notes. They have five Whole Tones and two Semitones in each octave.
A subset of the Heptatonic Scale is the Diatonic scale. The Major Scale also belongs to this smaller family of Diatonic scales.
These scales also consist of seven notes, but they are also arranged in a specific pattern of intervals. They are arranged such that the two Semitones are separated from each other by either 2 or 3 Whole Tones depending on their positions in the scale.
The major scale is constructed using this formula:
· Root note (or Tonic note)
· Whole Tone
· Whole Tone
· Semitone
· Whole Tone
· Whole Tone
· Whole Tone
· Semitone
This is how we can build the Major Scale in the Key of C major
· Start from the C note (the root).
· From the C note move up a Whole Tone to the D note.
· From the D note move up another Whole Tone to the E note.
· From the E note move up a Semitone to the F note.
· From the F note move up a Whole Tone to the G note.
· From the G note move up a Whole Tone to the A note.
· From the A note move up a Whole Tone to the B note.
· Therefore, the major scale starting on C would have the notes C, D, E, F, G, A, and B.
· We can also include the Semitone that leads up from the B to the C note which is an octave higher than the Root note (or Tonic note).
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