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Major Scales
How is the Major Scale Constructed?
The major scale is at the root of most of the music that we commonly listen to. That is, if you listen to music from the western world. Major scales (or derivates of the major scale) form the foundation of most music created in the western world for the last 300 years or so.
A scale is simply a pattern of notes. All the various musical scales are variations of notes derived from the twelve notes of the chromatic scale.
The major scale uses the following pattern:
Whole-tone, Whole- tone, Semi-tone, Whole-tone, Whole-tone, Whole-tone, Semi-tone
A semi-tone is like moving from one key to the next on a piano or moving to the next fret on a guitar. A whole tone is double that. In other words, two keys on the piano or two frets on the guitar. Each note in the chromatic scale represents one semi-tone.
Let’s create a major scale beginning on D:
First write out a chromatic scale starting on D:
D, D#/Eb, E, F, F#/Gb, G, G#/Ab, A, A#/Bb, B, C, C#/Db, D
Then after we apply the major scale pattern we end up with:
D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#, D
We started on D and then we moved up (moving right on the chromatic scale) 2 semi-tones (1 whole-tone) to derive E. Then we moved up another whole-tone to get F#, etc.
Here is a simple rule to keep in mind: All seven letters must be included in your major scale.
In the D major scale example above, you must choose F# and not Gb. Otherwise your scale would be:
D, E, Gb, G, A, B, C#, D
As you can see we have used the letter G twice and not used F. Although, F# and Gb are the same pitch, we use the F# name. We do this so that we are consistent in our note selection.
If a song is based on a C major scale then we say that we are in the key of C. This means that the majority of the notes in the song are found in the C major scale.
The number of sharps or flats used and the notes they apply to is called the key signature.
