An extremely simple way to work out major scales

Here is a quick lesson I wrote up a while ago on another forum under the tag 'MajorTom', it's basically how I teach all my students how to work out every major scale that there is for themselves, all it requires is that you know they layout of a keyboard.

 

I always recommend that my students whether they are studying electric guitar, or classical guitar go out and buy a cheap 21 or 25 key keyboard, they are very handy to have even really cheap ones, if my students fancy becoming more proficient with the keyboard or piano, I advise them to spend a bit more money on one and perhaps even get one with the full 88 keys, but for the purpose of working out every major scale, 21 or 25 keys is more than enough, and this is a surprisingly simple thing to do. So simple to do in fact that I am shocked that they don't teach this little trick in guitar lessons yet alone piano lessons, and continue to force you to learn your scales via memorizing them without any memory aides or tricks.



As you will notice in the photo above I have labeled every key on the keyboard - the small 'S' means sharp, my keyboard doesn't have the ability to make the sharp symbol, nor does it have the ability to make the flat symbol, C sharp, is the same note as D Flat, but for simplicity I'll stick to using sharps, and focusing first on the C major scale.



Now the scale of C major is made up of eight notes, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and finally the octave C, if you look at the position of these notes on the above keyboard you will notice that there is a a 'step' in between the first and second note in the scale, in other words there is a black key in between the C and D notes, this is repeated again between the D and E notes, when it get to the E and F notes there is no black key in between these notes, so this is a half step, it goes back to a step in between the G and A notes, a step in between the A and B notes and a half step in between the B and the C note.



In simple terms the pattern for any major scale is as follows step, step, half step, step, step, step, half step. With this pattern and a 2 octave keyboard in front of you, you can work out every major scale and the notes that form that scale.



Take the scale of G major for example:



G, A, B, C, E, F#, G



G to A is a one step, A to B is a one step, B to C is a half step, C to D is one step, D to E is one step, E to F#(F sharp) is a one step, and F#(F sharp) to G is half a step.



The only thing you need to remember when trying to work out major scales and the notes that make up these scales is the following pattern:



Step, Step, Half Step, Step, Step, Step, Half Step



It also helps to have a keyboard in front of you or the ability to visualize one and the position of the notes on it, though this is not necessary, and it becomes a lot easier the more often you do it, in fact it almost becomes second nature.Try using the pattern with other major scales to see it working for yourself, I can not stress how memorizing this simple pattern will make major scales very simple to work out for youorself.