SCALES – AN EXHAUSTIVE LOOK!

Scales are your prime tool for navigating your fretboard. 

HERE’S AN INTRODUCTION!

Scales contain the individual notes that go into a unified piece of music. When you hear a piece of music, particularly if the key does not change, you should know that the notes from that music can be extracted and arranged alphabetically to produce a scale with a strongly defined starting point or ROOT NOTE.

GRAVITY

The root note has gravity. The other notes in the scale gravitate to it; you will find as you play that you are constantly pulled back to the root note to finish or resolve a riff or lick (or MELODY to use a classical term). This is a unique feature of western music.

Scales of the same type (major, minor, pentatonic, modal) will have a similar sound and feel but gravitate to different root notes depending on which you choose. F minor natural sounds similar to D minor natural but the former gravitates to the F note while the latter gravitates to D.

INTERVAL PATTERNS and MOOD/FEEL

The distinctive sound of any particular scale type is based on the interval pattern for that scale. Eg if you play any note then follow with another note one whole tone (2 frets) higher, then another a whole tone higher again you will hear the first 3 notes of the major scale – play them backward and you have the melody from Three Blind Mice.

But lower that 3rd note by one semitone (one fret) and you have a darker, melancholy sound (because you’ve just played the first three notes of the minor scale):

1 – T – 2 – T – 3 = Major

1 – T – 2 – ST – 3 = minor. 

Where T = tone (whole tone) and ST – semitone. Interval patterns dictate mood and feel.

SCALES and KEYS

These two words can really be used interchangeably. There’s a slight difference, ‘scale’ usually refers to a succession of individual notes whereas ‘key’ can mean all the pitch material in a piece of music, be they notes or chords or dyads (2 notes at once). But vitally it’s the notes of the scale that form all of these expressions. 

You may hear people speak of ‘the key of F’ or ‘the key of C’. This is an incomplete way of describing what they mean. To complete the statement one should specify the TYPE of scale that feeds the key. Eg ‘the key of F major’ or ‘the key of C minor’. 

It is possible to describe it even more accurately eg ‘the key of F Dorian’ – that means the Dorian mode will be used around the root note F – or ‘the key of G# mixolydian’ – another mode, this time gravitating around the root note G#.

MAJOR SCALE IS KING!

All other scales are modifications of this scale so PLEASE study it. Know how to play it on the fretboard, in different positions. Learn the interval pattern. The natural minor scale (which is actually the AEOLIAN MODE) comes from the major scale as do all 6 other modes, as well as pentatonics. 

GO EXPLORE!

Now that you’ve digested the introduction, dive in. Have a look at the various download-able scale documents here. 

ENJOY! 

INTERVAL PATTERNS AND SCALE TONE NUMBERS

SCALE	TONE NUMBERS	INTERVAL STRUCTURE
Major	1-2-3-4-5-6-7	T-T-S-T-T-T-S
Natural minor	1-2-b3-4-5-b6-b7	T-S-T-T-S-T-T
Major Pentatonic	1-2-3-5-6	T-T-T+S-T-T+S
Minor Pentatonic	1-b3-4-5-b7	T+S-T-T-T+S-T
Blues	1-b3-4-b5-5-b7	T+S-T-S-S-T+S-T
Major Blues	1-2-b3-3-4-b5-5-6-b7	T-S-S-S-S-S-T-S-T
Minor Blues	1-2-b3-4-b5-5-6-7	T-S-T-S-S-S-T-T
Ionian Mode	1-2-3-4-5-6-7	T-T-S-T-T-T-S
Dorian Mode	1-2-b3-4-5-6-b7	T-S-T-T-T-S-T
Phrygian Mode	1-b2-b3-4-5-b6-7	S-T-T-T-S-T-T
Lydian Mode	1-2-3-#4-5_6_7	T-T-T-S-T-T-S
Mixolydian Mode	1-2-3-4-5-6-b7	T-T-S-T-T-S-T
Aeolian Mode	1-2-b3-4-5-b6-b7	T-S-T-T-S-T-T
Locrian Mode	1-b2-b34-b5-b6-7	S-T-T-S-T-T-T
Harmonic Minor	1-2-b3-4-5-b6-7	T-S-T-T-S-T+S-S
Melodic Minor (ascending)	1-2-b3-4-5-6-7	T-S-T-T-T-T-S
Melodic Minor (descending)	1-2-b3-4-5-b6-b7	T-S-T-T-S-T-T