Major scale is the fundamental building block of music irrespective of language or genre of music you will have to learn and is one of the most widely used scales.
What is a Scale?
A Scale is a selection of certain notes within an octave. All music notes begin with do, re, me…(western style) or sa re ga ma..(Indian style). The notes are used to in particular sequence to form a scale.
There are many scales, however the first scale that gets taught is the Major scale. Even other scales which has got nothing to do with major scales gets named or compared to the major scale. Therefore it is important to understand how a major scale is constructed.
Concept of Half Notes
W stands for whole note and H stands for Half note. The distance between one note to next one, either higher or lower is half note. Two half notes make a Whole note. On a keyboard the distance between one key to next key is half note. On a Guitar distance between one fret to the next fret is half note.
The formula for major scale is W W H W W W H
Constructing C Major Scale
So let us start from C, then the next set of notes are given below starting from C note.
C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C
The distance between from one note to another is half note(H) and 2 halves is called as Whole note (W). So in the above case distance from C to C# is half note and C to D is 2 half notes or one whole note (W)
So let us construct a. C major scale using the above formula. The C major scale has 7 notes
- First Note : C (Also called as Root Note)
- W: Second Note : D (Whole note from C is D)
- W: Third Note : E (Whole note from D is E)
- H: Fourth Note : F (Half note from E is F)
- W : Fifth Note: G (Whole note from F is G)
- W : Sixth Note : A (Whole note from G is A)
- W : Seventh Note : B (Whole note from A is B)
- H : Back to Root note: C
So using the formula W W H W W W H, when we construct C scale, we get – C D E F G A B C.
All the major scales can be constructed in similar fashion. It is immaterial whichever instrument you play be it Guitar, keyboard, Flute, Violin etc. the major scales are same on every instrument.
If you would like to learn music theory and scales, you can try a free trial class with 1 to 1 Online Live Music Classes with our qualified music teachers.
You can also check the following blogs to get better idea of Major Scales:
C Major Scale in Piano
