The True Nightmare before we get to Christmas: SCALES

Busting the myths behind scales. Music actually becomes more fun if you learn them.

Today’s topic is the nightmare of every person studying music. SCALES. But why are they so bad? Well, probably because we have been trained to think about and practice scales the wrong way. Before I tell you what I think a scale really is, let me tell you what I think it is not. A scale is not a boring exercise, it is not a monotonous routine, it is not useless, it is not hard. Scales are palettes of musical tones. They are the basis of all melody and harmony in music, they are super useful and a great exercise if you actually want to learn music.

I define scales as a collection of consecutive notes, or notes that are next to each other. In western music, these collections are made from specific patterns of whole steps and half steps. The most popular scales, for example major and minor, contain 7 unique notes, with a different pattern of whole steps and half steps in each type of scale. The whole tone scale contains 6 unique notes and the diminished scale has 8.

Scales are the foundation of melody and harmony in music. They provide tonality. In other words, scales present us with the palette of colours for a certain song, or a certain section of a song. And when we hear a note played in a song that is not part of that palette, we often label that note as “wrong”. A scale is like a list of facts about the dessert for example. We know that a dessert has a lot of sand, and for the most part, nothing else. So, if someone tells you that there is an area in the Sahara where Santa Claus makes candy canes…. You would say: “WRONG” Everyone knows Santa works at the North Pole. Same with a scale or tonality, hearing notes that don’t belong is like seeing Santa in the dessert. Which is why when your teacher tells you to learn scales, they are actually telling you to learn and absorb different tonalities available, so that you can train your ear and hear music as well as play it. This is the real way of learning music. If you learn your scales, you’ll never blurt out to someone something stupid musically, like that Santa lives in the dessert.

How much do you really have to learn? Well: Major, Melodic Minor, Diminished and Whole Tone. You have to learn all of the major and melodic minor scales in all 12 keys. But do not worry, even though the notes in the keys will be different, the pattern of the notes will be the same in each category of scales. So, you learn the major scale pattern and apply it to all 12 keys. Then the melodic minor scale pattern and apply to all 12 keys. Good news! Only 3 diminished scales exist, and only 2 whole tone scales! This is because they are symmetrical scales, which means that the pattern of whole and half steps in the scales is repetitive, whereas in major and melodic minor scales the pattern is a bit more varied, which means it doesn’t repeat and therefore the scale is not symmetrical. This allows us to start the scales on each of the 12 notes available in western music without repeating the scales. Because diminished scales are symmetrical with alternating whole and half steps, you can start and name diminished scales as whole/half diminished (which would be the pattern of the scale) or half/whole diminished (which would be the pattern of the scale). So an Eb whole/half and Eb half/whole diminished are two different scales. There are only 3 scales, just many different names.

Before you start learning scales in all 12 keys, make sure you know all 12 keys. This means you should know the key signatures in all 12 keys. The order of sharps and flats in a key signature is ALWAYS the same. You have to memorize this order.

Note: Most Jazz Musicians prefer to think of F# as Gb Major (They are the same scales just using different note names) and C# as Db. Gb and Db keys will show up more often in music.

A trick for recognizing sharp key signatures is, the key name will always be a half step above the last sharp in the key signature. Ex. In the key of E Major, the last sharp is D#, so to figure out the key name we go up a half step, which is E. And when you are trying to remember the order of the sharps you can use this saying: Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle. The first letter of each word represents a sharp. Which means if you are trying to write the key signature for E, you would do the opposite of what we did before, you go down a half step, and that will be the last sharp you include in your key signature. So, E Major has: F# C# G# D#

Note: Most Jazz Musicians prefer to think of Cb as B Major (They are the same scales just using different note names). Cb will almost never show up in music.

A trick for flats is, the key name will be the same as the second last flat in a key signature. So, if we see a key signature for Db Major, the second last flat is Db. When you are trying to remember the order of the flats you can use this saying: Battle Ends And Does Goes Charles Father. It is the first saying backwards. So now if you are trying to write a key signature for Db, you have to remember that Db is the second last flat so you should write a key signature that includes Gb, so: Bb Eb Ab Db Gb.

I have included examples of the different types of scales we talked about earlier. We will get into each in more detail in later articles.

If you have any questions or would like to take lessons, email me at tetyanahar@gmail.com