How to Build Major and Minor Scales on your Guitar

A short lesson on building Major and Minor Scales on Guitar

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Scales are the most important and quintessential part of any music.Practicing scales are very essential for any musician, i mean instrumentalists, to gain speed on their instrument and to play different kinds of riffs with ease. Whether you are a vocalist, an instrument player or a composer. Unless and until you know how to play different scales, then you cannot create a different shades of melody which invokes different moods or emotions in a listener.

Major and Minor Scales

Major scales are the most important and basic component in music and the first one in the diatonic scales with 7 notes. A major scale evokes a plain mood when played, where as Minor scales when played give a more bluesy feel or to be precise, a sad or a feeling of pathos. This is what I have felt.

Useful Music Theory

Randall Williams discusses music theory in a useful and practical context.

What are covered in this Lesson ?

After this short lesson, you will come to know what is a Chromatic Scale and also learn how to build Major and Minor scales. You will understand the formulae for each of the scales and you will be able to build any Major and Minor scale with ease.

Learning Chromatic Scale

This is a Non-Diatonic scale with only HALF STEPS

Chromatic scale is a non-diatonic(diatonic scale is a scale with 7 notes, a standard scale) scale that can be built on any key. But it will contain only half tones or steps and it will have 12 notes unlike 7 notes in a diatonic scale. It is nothing but dividing an Octave into 12 different pitches. The interval between two Chromatic scales notes in this scale will be always a half step or a semitone. Sharp of a note is one semitone higher than that note and Flat of a note is one semitone lower to that note Let's take the Key of C and analyze the Chromatic notes Ascending Notes C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C (SHARP is denoted by the symbol '#') Descending Notes C B B-flat A A-flat G G-flat F E E-flat D D-flat C

Learn the forumulae to build guitar Major and Minor scales

Minor scales are more melodious than major scales

This lens can be considered as the 3rd part. I have created 2 other lenses prior to this one which touches through the basics of guitar playing. So if you want to brush your basics, you can go through my lens "Get yourself a guitar to learn how to play ! "Before we hop into chord building, we will just see what is an "Interval" in music Whole Tone or Whole Step - This is the interval between the first and second notes of a major or diatonic scale. In case of C Major, the distance between the notes C and D. In guitar it is the interval between two frets. This interval is known as Major Second Semi-tone or Half Tone or Half Step - This the smallest interval in music. That is the note immediately after the first note in a diatonic scale. In case of C Major scale, it will be C and D-Flat. In guitar the immediate fret after C, or there is no interval of a fret between two notes(C and D-Flat). This interval is called Minor second

Note: Whole Step will be denoted as "W" and Half Step will be denoted as "H"

Formula to build a Major Scale

The formula is as below

W-W-H-W-W-W-H

You can build any major scale using this formula. Always start with the root or tonic note. Now, let's take the C Major scale now. The root or tonic note is C and the next degree is D. The interval is a Whole Step. And the interval between E and F is a half step and also, B to C is again half.

Formula to build a Minor Scale

The minor scale is as below

W--H-W-W-H-W-W

You can build any minor scale if you follow this formula. Start with the root or tonic note.