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Home > Blues Trace: From Modern Rock To The Dawn Of The Blues
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Scales - An Introduction by Mehdi Maujood
Scales are perhaps one of the major confusions and often a mystery among self-learning guitarists. In this lesson, I will explain what scales are, and why they are used. You will need a knowledge of what notes are to understand scales.
So What are Scales?
When writing a piece of music, composers never use all of the twelve notes found in western music. A song that uses all twelve notes would probably sound terrible. Instead, they use only a certain collection of notes which they know will sound good together. This collection of notes is called a scale.
This simply means that, when writing a piece of music, you stick to the notes of a scale. You play only the notes from the scale, and don't play notes that don't belong to the scale. Notes that do not belong to the scale normally sound bad when used with notes of the scale.
How Scales are Formed
The notes of a scale are not just randomly selected, they are based on a certain 'scale formula'. These 'scale formulas' have already been created for us by musicians. Now we will form the A Major scale. To do this, we first list all the twelve notes beginning at A:
A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G#
Next, we select the notes number 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, and 12. The notes selected are A, B, C#, D, E, F#, and G#. These notes form the A Major scale. When writing a song that uses the A Major scale, you will use only these notes.
Now suppose you want to form the C Major scale. As some of you will have guessed, you will list the twelve notes beginning at C, and select the notes number 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 10, and 12, just like we did above. The C Major scale will be C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. Try forming major scales based on other notes for an exercise.
Apart from major scales, there are also many other popular scales. There is the minor scale, which is used in almost every style of music, the blues scale, the pentatonic scales, and several others.
A point to note is that all scales have unique sounds. For example, music made in a major scale tends to sound bright. Most nursery rhymes are in the major scale. The blues scale is obviously used in blues, because that's what it sounds like.
Using Scales
By now, you might be wondering how you can utilize scales. Suppose you have some background music in C Major, and you want to compose a tune over it. You know you can only use the notes C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. To make use of this information, you will have to remember each note on your fretboard, and be able to recall it faster than you can play it! That's tough!
As far as the guitar is concerned, we have a shortcut known as scale patterns. I won't explain what scale patterns are in this article, but I encourage you to look into this topic if you play the guitar.
There is much more to learn about scales and music theory than this tiny lesson explains. I encourage you to learn more about scales, scale patterns and music theory in general. It is really not difficult. If you want to make some music on your own, a knowledge of these topics would be a tremendous asset.
About the Author
For guitar lessons and more on music theory, http://www.guitarnationlive.com
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