After you have learned about notes we now can dive deeper in the world of theoretical music. “The scales”. If you haven’t read the article about notes you probably should start there. If you know about scales and all the variations of them so much in music will start to make sense and you will start to see patterns and logic in music. A scale consists of eight notes that lie between one and the same note, but a whole octave higher. The scales are all different. There are minor scales, as well as major scales. Also different minor scales and church scales. But about those special scales we talk in another article. But how does a scale work? Between the two notes, that are actually the same note, just like mentioned above, you move with full tune steps. With exceptions in every scale.

For understanding a half tune step is what you can imagine on a piano keyboard when you go from one white key to the next black key that lies between two white keys and a full tune step is when you go straight to the next white key and skip. the black key For major scales there is just a half tune step between the third and fourth note and the seventh and the eighth. For minor scales those half tune steps are between the second and the third and between the sixth and the seventh. To apply those rules to a scale b and # are added to the notes. So different notes have different numbers of accidentals. If you write down the notes of a c major scale and look them up in a piano like mentioned above, you can see that there are no accidentals needed. Because between the third and fourth note and the seventh and eighth there are already half tune steps. First we start with the Major scales .

Now if we look at the F major scale we see that the third to fourth note is no half tune step, it is a full tune state from an A to an B. So we add the b to the B and make it a Bb, now the rule applies. The F major scale holds on b. If you do the same with the Hb major Scale, you will see that you need two b to follow the rule. With the Eb major Scale it is three b, with the Ab major it is four, with the Db major it is five and with the Gb major it is six b. The same goes for major scales with #. The G major scale needs one # added to the F to make it an F# to follow the rule. For D major you need two # and for A major you need three #. For the E major scale you need four #, for the F# major scale you need five # and for the B major scale you need six # to follow the rules.

Now the rule for the minor scales is the half tune step between the second and the third and between the sixth and the seventh. But there is something that makes it easier now. You see every major scale has a parallel minor scale. Both the major and its parallel minor scale share the same accidentals. But what minor scale is the parallel scale to a major scale? It is easy. You just move down three half tune steps from the start note of the major scale and you find it. You can count it on a piano scale. For the C major scale this would be the A minor scale. Both share the fact that they don’t need any accidentals to follow the rules. For the F major scale it would be the D minor scale. Both need one b to follow the rules. This works with every scale mentioned above. For visualization you can look at the circle of fifths in the picture below:

The big Letters are Major scales and the small letters are the parallel minor scales. It also shows the number and kind of accidental needed for a scale to follow the rules.

I can understand that scales seem like a lot in the beginning, but with the circle of fifths and the piano keyboard it should be easier to understand. Try your best!