(The most important thing is to be able to play the scale, but let’s continue with some music theory.) Free Guitar Scale Charts And Fingering Diagrams. To count a whole tone, count up two piano keys, whether white or black. Sing the names of the notes along with your playing to connect the notes to the intervals. B is the leading tone and C is the octave of the scale. (For in… 5 – Memorize the whole-half step formulas for the major and natural minor scale. Formula: 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 (Cmaj7) The major scale is consonant over major chords. Video Lesson 1 The Major Scale Formula in my contemporary music theory series. A major scale is 1-2-3-4-5-6-7. A whole step = 2 half-steps, and a half step is simply the distance between 2 adjacent notes. As long as you know the major scale formula, you can start on any note or key and form a major scale. These notes happen to be white notes, so the C scale picture looks like this. So for the entire C Major Scale the formula is C (1) D (2) E (3) F (4) G (5) A (6) B (7) C (8). For example, a C major scale corresponds with a C major chord. This structure creates a Major scale from any starting note. Keep practicing this scale until you are very comfortable with it. You can play many songs using the notes of this scale only. Let’s take a look at which notes would make up this blues scale if we were to begin on A. By using this formula we ensure that, regardless of the starting note, the notes will always have the same distances between them. To find the notes of the scale, we apply the major scale formula to the musical alphabet. It has no sharps or flats. Natural C Minor Scale = C, D, Eb, F, G, Ab, Bb, C. Harmonic C Minor Scale = C, D, Eb, F, G, Ab, B, C. The formula for forming a harmonic minor scale is W-H-W-W-H-W 1/2-H. (Whole step – half step – whole step – whole step – half step – whole step and a 1/2 step – half step.) Non computer generated. C is the tonic of this scale. Major Scale Worksheets. These can be described as steps on the guitar fingerboard according to the following formula: whole, whole, whole, half, whole, whole, half from the first note to the same in the next octave. What is the C major scale? Stated positively, spend some time writing out the 12 major scales and you will be, a) motivated to learn the relevant short-cuts. Beginning with the first C on the piano keyboard in the above illustration, let’s use the formula to find the notes for the C major scale. The designations of scale-degrees are equivalent to the analysis numbers for Roman Numeral Analysis.Thus we can have I chords, #I chords, bII chords and II chords, for example.. This might be a bit confusing, but we now call that second note of the major scale “1”, because it becomes the root of our chord: D: F: A: 1: b3: 5 . If all the notes had been exactly the same as C, it wouldn’t be in a different key at all; it would still be the key of C.  All keys have a unique combination of sharps and flats that gives that key its identity. Minor 2. Steps and Intervals . Make wrong musical choices. Guitarists and their gear – A marriage made in heaven or made in hell? The major scale (or Ionian mode) is one of the most commonly used musical scales, especially in Western music.It is one of the diatonic scales.Like many musical scales, it is made up of seven notes: the eighth duplicates the first at double its frequency so that it is called a higher octave of the same note (from Latin "octavus", the eighth). The C Minor is relative to Eb Major. Formula: 1-2-b3-4-5-6-b7-8 (Dmin7) The Dorian minor scale as a b3, natural 6, and b7. Scales you can use in the real world, created by a human guitarist. It contains exactly the same notes, but starts on another note. Between the 3rd and the 4th notes of the scale is a half-step, and between the 7th and 8th notes is also a half-step. Dorian Minor scale . Go here to get it at a discounted price. 3 – Write down and play a C major scale, vertical approach (played across multiple strings) 4 – Build a pentatonic minor scale on a single string. C Major Formula Pattern scale. Learn more about forming C major scale and other major scales here. The 2nd note is D, 3rd note is E, 4th note is F, 5th note is G, 6th note is A, 7th note is B, and 8th note is C. Let’s take things a little further. There are short-cuts you will learn (like the Circe of Fifths, for example) but if you try to learn them first without doing the basic work, the same two things will be true as in my example above. 1. The Major Scale Formula. If you start on any note, you'll end up with a major scale from that note if you follow that formula. Constructing a C Major Scale. b) you will understand the theory behind the short-cuts. In the two-octave pattern, the first root note is on the 6th string, 8th fret. Ask Question Asked 5 years, 4 months ago. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. C Major Scale. 0:13 In this 12 week series, going over the basics of contemporary music theory, we’re going to start right here with learning the major scale formula. Memorize the following list of music terms covered in this lesson. 6 – Play a vertical A major scale on the spot using your memorized major scale formula. Active 5 years, 4 months ago. The major scale chord qualities are summarized in the table below. Let’s take this one step further and learn to play the Cmaj scale with the left hand. It is very simple and consists of white keys only. A half-step is a distance of one fret. That is useful when you need to know which notes to play in any This is the order of whole-steps and half-steps that make up the major scale. 3 – Write down and play a C major scale, vertical approach (played across multiple strings) 4 – Build a pentatonic minor scale on a single string. Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. Luckily, in a C major scale, no accidentals are needed to complete the scale. This will be important later on for more complex chords. The most effective way of breaking down this formula is to see it in relation to the chromatic scale - the entire twelve notes of the guitar. Learn about the C Major Scale and view detailed information about the musical scale, along with the scale notes, intervals and the scale formula. The Ionian scale, a major scale, is among the most frequently used in Western music. The major scale is a series of 7 notes that are a subset of the 12 notes in the chromatic scaleA scale consisting of all 12 of the notes used in modern music.. The C major scale is created by playing the notes from C to C. And, the pattern that results from this is our formula for the major scale (more on this in a moment). When going down the scale, the same fingers are used. Essentially, no key signature is needed for a C major scale. So chord I of the harmonized C Major scale is C Major. The root notes are always C tones. Bonus: If you’d like to practice drafting other major scales, the same process of using the major scale formula can be used. Click here to learn how to play piano and keyboards (with Piano For All). The formula for creating a major scale is “whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half.”. The major scale uses just seven notes from the twelve tone chromatic scale, which is what gives us its unique intervals - the spaces between each note in the scale. The formula for forming a natural (or pure) minor scale is W-H-W-W-H-W-W. “W” stands for whole step and “H” stands for half step. C Major Blues Scale Formula. A C major scale begins with a C and ends with a C. It is the simplest to write in notation and demonstrate on a piano. Everything, even other scales that have nothing to do with the major scale, gets named in relationship to it. D is the supertonic of the scale. The thumb now goes under the 3rd finger and plays G, the 2nd finger plays F, 3rd finger plays E, 2nd finger plays D and 1st finger plays C. Major scales contain 7 notes and all use the formula W-W-H-W-W-W-H (whole tone, whole tone, half tone, whole tone, whole tone, whole tone, half tone.) This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. The major scale formula creates the need for accidentals in key signatures.Essentially, a key signature shows which notes are changed to produce the major scale formula starting on the keynote. Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. If you called it gb the scale would go “g, a, b, c, d, e, gb, g” and there would be no letter f.  Plus you’d have used the letter g twice, once for “g” and once for “gb” which doesn’t make sense. Scale formula expressed in terms of (H)alf and (W)hole steps. In this case, we’re going to be making a C major scale. C Major Blues Scale Formula. This same method can be done to derive any scale from the major scale. C Major scale for guitar. Learn more about forming C major scale and other major scales here.   Good luck and have fun. Scales you can use in the real world, created by a human guitarist. In the previous lesson we learned to place this formula on the fretboard of the guitar. Mastering your guitar chords, scales and arpeggios allows for more enjoyable, fluid, better playing for yourself and is the key to playing along with others. It’s a little like when I was a kid the math teacher had a us write out the answers to problems like these: It was only after a few days of this long-hand torture that she said there was a short-cut we could learn that would allow us to instantly know that the answers were 28 and 35, respectively. 3 Reasons Why Learning To Play Guitar Is The Right Choice For Your Child. Whole Step 5. The lesson could not be displayed because JavaScript is disabled. These can be described as intervals, as semi-notes or steps on the guitar fingerboard, written as 2 - 1 - 2 - 2 - 1 - 2 - 2 from the first note to the next octave. Everything else is a whole step.”  Say it out loud 3 more times, it’s that important. Notice that 1 and 8 are the same. Non computer generated. Use the following diagram to help you see that the distance between d and d# is a half-step and the distance between eb (the same note as d#) and f is a whole-step. C Major scale, chords, intervals, scale on the fretborad and more Notes are displayed in the fingerboard diagram with blue color with the root notes indicated by darker color. Previously, we learned about the musical alphabet and the major scale.The quality of the scale (major) is determined by the notes in it and their relationship to the tonic A word describing the tonal center of a piece of music, with other tones resolving to this note. Ionian or Major scale . Notes are displayed in the fingerboard diagram with blue color with the root notes indicated by darker color. The C Major is a seven-note scale. Chord IV of the harmonized C Major scale is F (F Major). 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