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?