Music scales

Music scales form the basis of nearly all the music you will ever hear.

If you hear a song, it is probably written using a musical scale even if the composer was ignorant of musical scales and just sat down and played or sang something that sounded good.

Image from Royal Conservatory of Music

But what are music scales?

Well, let Julie Andrews explain with her famous song from musical film The Sound of Music:

She sings about the notes of a music scale as “do re mi fa sol la ti do” which is known as the solfa or solfège scale and was devised by an Italian Bendictine monk called Guido d’Arezzo about 1,000 years ago!

A music scale is a set of notes of different pitches in ascending order of pitch where each note of the scale is higher than the previous one, or in descending order where each note is lower than the previous one.

They have evolved over many years as people experimented and found ways to make music that sounded good to listen to.

Most common scales consist of seven notes ascending to the octave above the first note.

For example the scale of A minor natural consists of the ascending notes A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and the A an octave above the first A. Here it is written on a music stave ascending and then descending back to A:

Notice that this scale uses only the white notes on a keyboard:

We can make a different scale using these same notes if we start on C. This gives us the scale of C Major:

Listen to both scales and compare how they sound. Despite using the same notes, the A minor scale sounds very different to the C major scale. Minor scales are often said to sound sad while major scales sound happy. What do you think?

You can make scales from the white notes of a keyboard by starting on any of the other notes. They are called modes and all have special names. You can find out more about modes on simple wikipedia. But we will stick with major (ionian mode) and minor (aeolian mode) scales as they are the most common.

There are 12 major scales and 12 natural minor scales, each one starting on one of the notes A to G including sharps and flats (the black keys on a keyboard).

Another important scale is the Chromatic scale. This consists of all the notes that can be played on a piano keyboard including the black notes, making a 12 note scale.

Notice that the black key notes on a keyboard are named after the white key notes on either side of them. For example the black key note between C and D is called either C# (“C sharp”) or D♭ (“D flat”). It is called C# because it is slightly higher (sharper) than C and called D♭ because it is slightly lower (flatter) than D.

For example here is the scale of C Chromatic:

Each note of a chromatic scale is a semi-tone above or below the one before. Chromatic scales are important because chromatic passages are often included in music whatever the underlying scale of the music, especially in jazz music and some classic and popular music. Here is the Flight of the Bumble Bee by Rimsky-Korsakov played on trumpet – enjoy!

If you are learning to play a musical instrument, including brass musical instruments, you might be interested in studying for grades, eg those set by the Associated Board of Royal School of Music (ABRSM).

To reach the highest grades you will need to learn and practice all 12 major scales and 12 minor scales (in 3 different patterns), chromatic scales and as well as some other scales.

For a list of all major and minor scales and selected chromatic scales, and links to practice exercises, see our pages on Major scales and Minor scales and our Scale exercises on our google drive.

The subject of musical scales is a huge topic in itself and a comprehensive discussion would fill a book!

You can read a simple introduction to music scales on BBC Bitesize here

For an in depth discussion of music scales try exploring wikipedia here

Now read our page on Musical intervals

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