Working out a Major Scale
Lesson 2 from: Music Theory Essentials: Chords, Scales and ModesTomas George
Working out a Major Scale
Lesson 2 from: Music Theory Essentials: Chords, Scales and ModesTomas George
Lesson Info
2. Working out a Major Scale
Lessons
Scales Introduction
03:08 2Working out a Major Scale
06:45 3Working out a Major Key from a Melody
05:51 4Major Keys and Scales
01:54 5Major Scale on a Score
02:56 6Triads
03:37 7Inversions
03:21 8Working out the Chords in a Major Scale
09:27Different Ways to Write out Chords
04:11 10Working out Major and Minor Triads
07:01 11Diminished and Augmented Triads
05:22 127th Chords
12:16 13Extended Chords
06:34 14Suspended Chords
06:02 15The Circle of 5ths
12:48 16How to Change Key
14:54 17Natural Minor Scale
11:21 18Chords in the Minor Scale
05:59 19Harmonic Minor Scale
07:15 20Melodic Minor Scale
11:12 21Modes
03:54 22Ionian Mode
00:47 23Dorian Mode
03:14 24Phrygian Mode
03:14 25Lydian Mode
01:21 26Mixolydian Mode
02:11 27Aeolian Mode
01:03 28Locrian Mode
03:56 29Section introduction
00:17 30Song Analysis 1 - Capsize
15:25 31Song Analysis 2 - Floating
18:07Lesson Info
Working out a Major Scale
OK. In this lecture, I'm going to show you how you can work out any major scale. So there are a couple of ways to knowing a major scale. The first way is to memorize all of the notes. And the other way is to just use this really simple pattern. And that way you can quickly work out the major scales. If you do play an instrument, it is advisable to kind of know all the major scales, it can be quite useful. But if you're new to music theory and you just want to jump in and compose, I definitely recommend just using this pattern, so you can work out any major scale. So for demonstrations sake, we're going to use C major, which is just the white notes. So from C to C C to C just the white notes. The reason we're going to use C major is from a visual point of view, it's very easy to see. It's just the white notes and the pattern that we use to work out. A major scale is tone tone semitone, tone tone tone semitone. So, TT ST tt s just remember there's two semitones in there So it's two tones...
and then the first semitone and then three tones and then the second semitone. So starting with a tone, all a tone is, is two notes. So if you go between, so if we just count up on the keyboard, there's two notes. So starting on C going up. So C# 12, which is D and the semitone is just quite simply going up one note. So if we go up a tone from, say, this will give us day if we go up another tone, this will give us e if you go up a semitone, you'll notice between E and F is just one note, you get F and then if we go up another tone. So up from this note here, this F sharp to G, then we go up another tone to a, another tone to B and then the semi Toone which will lead us back to C. So just remember tt ST tt S that's all you really need to remember. I'm going to demonstrate this on the piano roll keyboard as well. So if you're not a keyboard player and you're used to using this piano roll editor, let's actually uh have a look here. So we're going to start with C and then we'll have a look at a few other keys as well. So the first one is C here and then remember it's a T tone. So count 12 is ad, then we count 12 will give us an E this note here. And then, so it's tone tone semitone. So we need to count a semitone. Now, it will give us this one here, which is an F then remember tone which will bring us so count up 12, which will give us G and then turn again to 12, which will give us a and then turn again 12 forgivers B. Not that note, just drag it up after a while playing your major scales, you'll be able to hear when notes are wrong as well. You'll recognize this pattern of a major scale. And the last one is just one semitone to bring us to C. So if I play this back now, I'm sure you'll recognize this as a major scale, but let's just play it. There is a shortcut way of actually moving keys, which is to drag all of the notes and then simply move this pattern to another note. So if I move this up to D this will play at ad major scale now. So that's kind of the shortcut way. So you could always just start and see and then move upwards. But I do recommend starting in your key and then building from there because it does make a lot more sense, especially when you're building cords and adding notes which we will be looking at later on. So let's just go back to C. So remember it's just tone tone, semitone, tone tone tone semitone. Now, let's start on a different note. Let's start on G. So this is another key. It's a major key, but we're starting on a different note which is G. So if you know the piano keyboard, the G is five notes up from C and then same pass as before. So we have a tone up from G. So 12 will give us this one a tone up again, 12, this one B then semitone, then we have a tone to give us D A tone a tone again. So we get this note here which is an F sharp. So all of the keys apart from C will have one of these black notes as well as the white notes. And then we have a G at the end. So a semitone at the end, I'm just going to type this into the musical typing just in case you prefer working with musical typing instead of a keyboard. So the first note here is a G. So let's type this in and then a tone above. So remember count two notes up. That's all a tone really means. So 12. So we get this one which is an A tone again, just give us this one B A Semi Toone this time. Remember TT ST tt s, if you just take away one thing from this lecture, it's just tone tone, semitone, tone tone, tone semitone, just remember that write it down somewhere. That's really how you build a major scale. That's what I'm trying to demonstrate right now. So just remember a semitone here going up again, a tone up again, a tone which will give us this e up again a tone which will give us this F sharp. So let's write the F sharp and then a semitone should give us a G, we can start on any of the 12 notes. So any of these and that way we use this pattern and that will give us the major scale when writing a major scale, all we do is call it by its root name. So this starts on A G. So this is a G major scale. There are things called modes which we'll look at later on, which is basically where we have a scale. But we start on a different route note. But don't worry about that right now, this is how we write a major scale. So just remember, I've said it a lot already. This is one of the few things I want you to remember in this course, tone tone semitone, tone, tone, tone semitone. So two tones, one semitone, three tones, one semitone, that way you can work out a major scale in any key. So thank you for watching this lecture. I hope you found it useful. So you know how to write out a major scale.
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