“The importance of scales cannot be understated”: How to easily grasp scale theory

If the mention of scales conjures frightening flashbacks of instrumental lessons undertaken in your youth, you won’t be alone. But, the importance of scales cannot be understated - they are a vital foundation of music.

A scale is a sequence of notes that are played in a mostly step-wise motion, over a duration of an octave (e.g. from C to C). There are several different types of scale, but the main two that we’re analysing here, are the major scale and the minor scale.

If you look at your piano-shaped keyboard, you’ll notice that there are both white notes and black notes. Understanding which combination of these notes to use comes with experience, but armed with the basics, you can quickly and simply work out which notes you need.

The major scale

Let’s start with the major scale. Firstly, major scales are happy places to be! Playing a major scale should, if played correctly, sound bright and breezy, and that’s mostly down to one specific note. But before we get on to that, let’s look at the structure.

If you play all of the white notes on a keyboard, in an upward direction starting with the note ‘C’, you will play C major scale. This is often why keyboard players gravitate to C Major, but they may get a rude awakening the moment the guitarist arrives, as they like playing in keys such as E or A Major, and that means using those dreaded black notes! Fear not - it’s not that difficult!

You may notice that if you play both the white and black notes sequentially, in an upward or downward direction, you’ll be playing a chromatic scale.

This is made up entirely of semi-tones. Two semitones makes a tone, hence if you locate the note C on your keyboard, playing the next white note up (D) avoids the C# (aka, Db), so you’ll be playing an interval of a tone.

Play the white notes up from the note C, and you’ll notice a sequential pattern emerging, which is :- tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone. We can abbreviate this using T and S: TTS T TTS. When we write it like this, you can see the pattern of two instances of TTS, joined by a T in the middle.

If you take this sequence of notes and start on the note D, you will notice that you can work out the notes of D Major. You’ll be required to take in two black notes along the way, namely F# and C#, but you’ll notice the same TTS T TTS note sequence.

The minor scale

If you’re not feeling as bright and breezy as you normally do, you might try exploring the minor scale. This provides a sound which is sadder and more melancholic in nature, and as we previous suggested, this is down to one singular note of the scale.

If we stick with C, play the notes C, D and then Eb; that’s the black note straight after the note D. It’s this third note (or 3rd as we call it in musical circles) that does all of the heavy lifting here. Play an E natural (the white note) and you’re in a happy place, but drop it by a semitone to an Eb (black note) and the whole mood changes.

There are a few types of minor scale, but we’re going to keep things simple and work with the version which is referred to as the natural minor scale. Using our tone/semitone sequence, the scale consists of: TST TST T. You can clearly see that there is a repetitive pattern in this scale too, but it differs from our major. Apples and oranges, happy or sad!

Getting on with your relatives

Another helpful point to understand, is that each major scale has a relative minor, and vice versa. In much the same way that C Major uses all of the white notes on the keyboard, you can start on A, and playing only the white notes will yield the relative natural minor.

With all this theory, you might question why scales are so important? On a practical and instrumental level, knowing your scales links with melody writing, lead-soloing, bass lines, and practical technique, particularly if linked with your instrument. It’s a total bedrock, which might also explain why your music teacher used to bang on about it so frequently!

Read the previous instalments in our ongoing theory series below

- The pillars of music theory made simple
- How to become a master of melodies
- A quick guide to reading music
- How to understand rhythm when reading music