music theory for musicians and normal people by toby w. rush one of the reasons that a particular piece of The Major Scale music sounds the way it does has to do with the group of notes the composer decided to use.

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oh eb inuett j M no œ#œ œ œ œ œ œ &43 œ œ œ œ œ œ œœœ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ œ ˙. take this melody, for example... let’s first remove all the duplicate notes, regardless of which octave they’re in. œ#œ œ &43 œ œ œ œ next, let’s put the notes in alphabetical order, œ #œ œ starting on the note œ #œ œ œ œ œ that the melody sounded œ œ œ œ like it was centering on. œ œ

what we end up with there are actually many is the for “palette” different types of scales, this particular piece... each with a different pattern of whole steps and half steps. œ œ œ #œ œ œ œ œ a half step is the distance between like the board on which a painter holds two adjacent keys the bits of paint being used in the painting on the piano keyboard, being created. regardless of color.

in music, this “palette” is called a scale. though we usually write scales from low to high, the order is actually unimportant; it’s the notes contained in the scale that help make a piece sound the way it does. this particular arrangement, where half steps occur between steps three and four and between steps seven and eight (or between seven and one, since eight and one are the same note), is called the major scale.

half a whole step is the whole whole stepœ equivalent of step#œ half whole stepœ two half steps. whole stepœ step whole œ stepœ œ stepœ (this scale, by the way, is called the g major scale, because it starts on g.)

knowing this formula, you can create a major scale on any note!

the f major scale the d flat major scale œ but remember... œ bœ œ œ œ bœ bœ œ bœ with & œ œ & bœ bœ œ bœ great power the b major scale the g flat major scale comes great bœ bœ œ bœ responsibility! & #œ #œ œ & bœ bœ bœ bœ œ #œ #œ œ #œ licensed under a creative commons BY-NC-ND license - visit tobyrush.com for more