Dahnielson

Scales

Chromatic Scale

If you play using all the keys on the keyboard (both white and black keys) in order you will hear a so called chromatic scale:

In this scale all the tones have the same increase in pitch for each step, a semitone, which is the smallest pitch change used in music and possible to play on a piano.

Major Scale

If you instead play a scale only on the white keys starting with the C-key. What you will now hear is a major scale, a major scale in C to be more precise:

If you take a look at the keyboard while playing this scale you will notice that it’s a mix of semi- and whole-tone pitch changes per step. In a major scale these pitch changes are always ordered in the same pattern no matter what the key is: 1 + 1 + 1/2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1/2.

This pattern is valid for major scales in all keys. Each key get its name from the first note in the scale, which is called the tonic, and subsequently is the first key you press when playing the scale on a piano (where the concept of keys get its name from).

The following is simply the same scale in D-major:

As you can see it follows the same pattern as the scale in C-major, only transposed up one tone.

Minor Scale

Now play a scale on the white keys starting and ending with A:

What you will hear is a natural minor scale. This scale is very old and was common long before the modern major-scale was introduced. However over the last couple of centuries with richer haromies being developed the sound of the scale wasn’t really liked. The solution was to simply raise the 6th and 7th tone in the scale half a step (”sharpening” them). But traditionally only in the ascending progression of the scale and not in the descending version that retained its old natural form:

This type of scale is called a melodic minor scale whose pattern thus is: 1 + 1/2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1/2 ascending, and 1 + 1 + 1/2 + 1 + 1 + 1/2 + 1 descending. However, in jazz the melodic pattern is favored in both directions.

Practice Scales

Each major scale has a related minor scale. Since they both share the same tones with the exception of the “corrected” ones to make the minor scale melodic. For this reason minor scales do not have their own key signatures but borrow the signature from its relative major scale.

Even if scale practice may sound boring (and it can be) it’s nice to at least be familiar with them, and very helpful when improvising. Also try to memorize what key-signature belong to what key.

C-major / A-minor

F-major / D-minor

G-major / E-minor

Bb-major / G-minor

D-major / B-minor

Eb-major / C-minor

A-major / F#-minor

Ab-major / F-minor

E-major / C#-minor

Db-major / Bb-minor

B-major / G#-minor

Gb-major / Eb-minor

Scale Degrees

Actually, the correct term for tones (or notes) in a scale is scale degrees. To be precise a scale degree is the numeric position of a note within a scale ordered by increasing pitch. And the simplest system is to name each degree after its numerical position in the scale, for example: the first, the fourth, and so on. A common practice is to use roman numerals to indicate the position.

The seven notes in a major scale has also literal names, they are in order: tonic, supertonic, mediant, subdominant, dominant, submediant, leading-note.

However, the following so called “German” names are more common in United States, Germany and many other places around the world, especially when discussing harmony: tonic, subdominant-parallel, dominant-parallel, subdominant, dominant, tonic-parallel, leading-note.

Modes

Remember that we used a sequence like this: 1 + 1 + 1/2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1/2, to describe the major scale. Such tone/halftone sequences are called modes, that also literal names.

The seven modes based on the major scale are: Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Myxolydian, Aeolian and Locrian. The Ionian start on the 1st degree of the major scale, the Dorian on the 2nd degree of the major scale, and so on:

Ionian

1 + 1 + 1/2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1/2

Dorian

1 + 1/2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1/2 + 1

Phrygian

1/2 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1/2 + 1 + 1

Lydian

1 + 1 + 1 + 1/2 + 1 + 1 + 1/2

Myxolydian

1 + 1 + 1/2 + 1 + 1 + 1/2 + 1

Aeolian

1 + 1/2 + 1 + 1 + 1/2 + 1 + 1

Locrian

1/2 + 1 + 1 + 1/2 + 1 + 1 + 1

When the interval between the root and 3rd degree is a minor third the mode is said to be minor. This makes the Dorian, Phrygian and Aeolian modes to minor ones, and the rest to major modes (see the next section for explanation of major and minor intervals.)

So what we normally call a major scale is in fact Dorian mode, and a natural minor scale is Aeolian. It’s good to learn the intervals between each step of the different modes and practice them using different notes as root.