The Major Scale

Audio Clip (MIDI): Major Scale on C by us... simple major scale

Audio Clip (MIDI): Major Scale on C# by us... another simple major scale

Let's move on to one of the basic building blocks of music: the scale. First, play a simple major scale starting on C. Perhaps you've heard this before, perhaps not, but this is what a basic major scale sounds like. What is a scale exactly? Well, it's a series of notes like the one you just heard. Of course, it doesn't have to start on C. For example, we have another simple major scale starting on C#. This sounds slightly different, but you can tell that the scales are really the same thing. Hopefully, you've noticed that the note that the scales start and end on sound the same. This is an important point because a scale spans an octave, which is just two notes that are 12 notes apart.

Audio Clip (MIDI): Study on a C Major Scale by us... using the C major scale tones

What exactly is a major scale? Well, we've heard two of them, but that might not necessarily make it clear. Let's come up with an official definition: a major scale is a set of notes that defines the key of a piece. Wow, there are a lot of new terms in that. Rather than attempt to explain that, we'll give you an audio demonstration. Notice how all the notes in this demo are also notes in the C major scale? Well, that's a technique used by composers to create music. This makes the major scale extremely useful in composing pieces. The scale that composers take their notes from is called the key of the piece. Of course composers are not limited by any means to using only certain tones. Composers are free to write whatever notes they wish to make their pieces sound good. For example, composers often quickly change from key to key, utilizing different scales.

Now, we've neglected to mention some important aspects of the major scale. Not only does the scale define the key of the piece, but the notes in the scale are not variable. In other words, a composer cannot make up anything he or she wants and call it a scale. Instead, all major scales sound very similar and are all based on the same scale. For example, if you took the basic C major scale and bumped it up a few steps, you'd still have a major scale.

The Minor Scale

Audio Clip (MIDI): Harmonic Minor Scale on 'C' by us... simple minor scale

Hopefully, you now have some understanding on what a major scale is. Later on, we will go into more depth onto what the notes are that make up the major scale. First, though, we'd like to look into another type of scale: the minor scale. Again, don't worry too much about what the notes in this scale are; just play our simple harmonic minor scale starting (and ending) on C. What's a harmonic minor scale, you ask? Well, there are three different types of minor scales: natural, melodic, and harmonic. They all sound very similar but are slightly different.

Audio Clip (MIDI): Study on a 'c' Minor Scale by us... using the 'c' minor scale tones

Well, hopefully you were able to hear the harmonic minor scale. Notice anything different between it and the major scale? That's right; the minor scale sounded much "sadder". Like the major scale, the minor scale can be utilized by composers to create music. We've put together another little demonstration in the key of C minor. This means that the notes used in this demonstration were in that C minor scale. By the way, when a key is in a minor key, the general practice is to write the key of the piece in lower case. So, the key of this demonstration is c whereas the key of the demonstration before was C.

Now we know a little bit about how scales and keys work. There's still a whole lot more that we need to learn about music, though. Remember that music is more than just notes put together, there are also many different other components of music, including complex rhythms. Speaking of rhythms, continue to the next page for a lesson on rhythm.

Back to Lesson 2: What is Pitch?

On to Lesson 4: What is Rhythm?