Major Scales

Now we come once again to scales.
The major scale is the mother of all scales. You will need to learn this, or at the very least how to construct them to further your musical goals.
Everything you learn from this point onwards will probably almost fall back to the major scale itself. It is used by many as a starting point for learning many different concepts of music theory.

A Major scale is what is known as a diatonic scale. This means the scale has 7 notes, 8 if you include the octave.

A major scale is produce by the following formula:

Tone, Tone, Semitone, Tone, Tone, Tone, Semitone.

Lets take a C Chromatic ascending scale and a c major scale and compare them both, I have chosen C because C is the only scale that does not use any accidental notes.

C Chromatic:
C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C

C Major
C D E F G A B C

Counting up from c using the above formula of tones and semitones you will get the C major scale, lets break it down.

C to D (tone) D to E (tone) E to F (semitone) F to G (tone) G to A (tone) A to B (tone) B to C (semitone)

using this formula you can construct any major scale from any note...
lets try another more example. this time we will will try the key of A

A chromatic scale
A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G# A

A major scale.
A B C# D E F# G# A

A to B (tone) B to C# (tone) C# to D (semitone) D to E (tone) E to F# (tone) F# to G # (tone) G# to A (semitone)

Try working out the following major scales and try to follow the formula.
Major scale of D
major scale of G

it may help to write out the CHROMATIC scale first if you have difficulty.

Below is a diagram of a C major scale fingering pattern. Play one finger for each note. This pattern is MOVEABLE. which means that you can play this exact same pattern anywhere on the fretboard, and you will play in different keys.




For example, playing on the 8th fret will play c major. playing the pattern on the 3rd fret will play the G major scale, on the 4th the G# (or the Ab) major scale..

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