Bryan Fusilier

All right, its time to take everything we’ve learned so far and use it to build our first scale (mode). Like I showed you in the Introduction to Scales and Modes lesson, the first mode is also known as the Major Scale. All the scales we are going to be talking about have a few basic things in common. The first and most important thing is that they are all made up of seven notes. The second thing that is common to them all is that they are all going to be made up of five whole steps and two half steps. This arrangement of half-steps and whole-steps creates a unique pattern and that unique pattern creates a signature that defines what the scale is. Like I mentioned in a previous lesson, the thing that creates the “signature” of each of the scales that we are going to learn is “Where the half-steps fall”. In tonal music, the half-steps are the most important notes in a key as they create harmonic motion, which we will talk about later. To make this clear, let’s begin by looking at the signature of a major scale:

The unique arrangement of steps that creates a major scale is as follows:

whole-step, whole-step, half-step, whole-step, whole-step, whole-step, half-step

You must commit this pattern to memory! From here on out, I’m going to be abbreviating the terms half-steps and whole steps. So just get ready to see the abbreviations “hs” and “ws” and know that when you see them they mean:

hs = half-step

ws = whole-step

So again, the signature pattern of the major scale using our abbreviations is:

ws, ws, hs, ws, ws, ws, hs

So let’s see how to put this formula in practice by building a Major Scale starting with the note C. Here’s how it works. We begin with the note C. From there we go up a ws, which is a D. From there we go up another ws, which is an E. From there we go up a hs, which is a F. From there we go up a ws, which is a G. From there we go up a ws, which is an A. From there we go up a ws, which is a B. And finally, we go up a hs, which is a C again. So the notes of a C major scale are:

C D E F G A B C

Let’s add one more idea to the pile before I show you a video explanation of this. This is the idea of “scale degrees”. A scale degree is a number that is assigned to each note of the scale. This part really couldn’t be simpler. The first note of the scale is called the first scale degree. The second note of the scale is called the second scale degree. The third note of the scale is, you guessed it, the third scale degree and so on. I told you that each of the scales we are going to be learning are seven note scales so they will each have seven scale degrees in them. So now let’s take the C Major scale we just built and label the scale degrees above each of the notes.

So if I was to ask you what is the fourth scale degree of a C Major scale,  you should be able to tell me that it is an F. If you look at the chart above you will see that the 4th scale degree is, in fact, an F. So now that we are getting the idea of how this all works down, let’s take a look at a Rule that will help you in building your scales.

RULE: To build a scale pick a starting note and then build the signature pattern that defines the scale you want to build starting from that note. When doing this you will go through seven DIFFERENT notes names before you end up back at your starting note an octave higher or lower, depending on the direction you are building your scale. For example, if we want to build a C major scale, we start with the note C. We will then go up through DIFFERENT note name before arriving again at C. When I say different note names I literally mean that we won’t repeat any letter names on the way up or down. So C will go to some sort of a D, which will go to some sort of an E, which will go to some sort of an F, which will go to some sort of an G, which will go to some sort of an A, which will go to some sort of a B, before finally returning to a C. What sort of notes you might ask? That is determined by the signature pattern of the scale your building. In the case of the major scale, our pattern is:

ws, ws, hs, ws, ws, ws, hs

So a C goes up a WS to a D natural, which goes up a WS to an E natural, which goes up a HS to an F natural, which goes up a WS to a G natural, which goes up a WS to an A natural, which goes up a WS to a B natural, which then goes up a HS back to a C. But what if we are building a A major scale?

Well in that case a A goes up a WS to a B, which then goes up a WS to a C#. Not a C natural! Remember I said that you are going through seven different note names, so you know that you have to go from a B to some kind of a C. In this case, because the scale signature is requiring you to go up a WS, you have to go to a C#. So let’s continue on up the scale. Our next note has to be some kind of a D. Our signature pattern dictates that we now have to go a HS to get to the next of the major scale, so a HS above a C# is a D natural. We are now on the fourth note of the scale and we now have to go up a WS. A WS above a D is an E. Now we have to go up another WS, which is an F#! A WS above an F# is a G#. And finally a HW above that is an A, which leads us back to our starting note.

Let’s take a look at a video that will make this clear.

The video can be found here:

See how easy this is? As long as you know the signature pattern of each of the scales, you can use that pattern, and your knowledge of half-steps and whole-steps, to build that scale starting from any note. Before we move on, there is one more thing that I want you to be able to do with a major scale and that is to SING it. Yes, with your voice. My voice is terrible also, so that is no excuse. You simply must be able to play a note on your instrument and to then sing that note and, without using your instrument as a reference, to then sing a major scale up from that note. This isn’t as hard as it might seem at first, but in order to do this correctly I have to introduce you to something called solfeggio.

In a previous lesson called The Sound of Music, I introduced you to the idea of solfeggio, which is a system of applying sung syllables to scale degrees. And I’m sure that you did what I asked you to do and immediately dropped what you were doing and learned the song on that page. Right?? Well if you didn’t, now is the time to go back to it, because that song was teaching you the Major Scale. Every note in that song is from the Major Scale and the main melody of it was designed to drill the sound of the Major scale into your head. It was also introducing you to Solfeggio, through the lyrics of the song. So now let’s take a look at our chart again and add a column that shows you what the solfeggio syllables are for each scale degree of the major scale.

Now that you understand what the point of it all is, go back and watch this video again.

Fast Tube by Casper

I want you to learn to be able to sing the song using the solfeggi syllables. And then go back to your instrument, play any note, and then using that note as the starting point, sing your major scale up from that note and then back down. Use your ear to guide you!! That’s what this is all about. You have to be able to hear what I’m telling you about. So grab your instrument and hit a random note. Then sing that note. Then using it as a starting point, sing this song!!! If you really do this, you’ll be thanking me one day when you can hear a major scale in your head and can accurately sing the seven different notes of that scale in any order without ever touching an instrument.