Ethan Hein's Blog

Following up and expanding on a post about learning music theory with Auto-tune. See also a post about the major scale modes and an intro to minor keys.

So maybe you want to write a song or an instrumental in a particular mood or style, and you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the scales. Here’s a handy guide to the commonly used scales in western pop, rock, jazz, blues and so on. They’re shown in the way you’d program them into Auto-tune. Click each image to go to that scale’s Wikipedia page, where you can hear it, see it in traditional notation and pick up fun historical facts.

Major scales

These scales have a major third, which makes them feel happy or bright. See them side-by-side.

C major

Happy; can be majestic or sentimental when slow. The white keys on the piano. Examples: “Mary Had A Little Lamb,” “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”

C mixolydian

Bluesy, rock; can also be exotic/modal. Play over C7 chord. Same pitches as F major. Example: “Tomorrow Never Knows” by the Beatles.

C lydian

Ethereal, dreamy, futuristic. Same pitches as G major. Example: “Possibly Maybe” by Björk (from the line “As much as I definitely enjoy solitude…”)

C ahava raba

Exotic, Middle Eastern, Jewish. Same pitches as F harmonic minor. Example: “Hava Nagila.”

Minor Scales

These scales have a flat third, which gives them a darker and more tragic feel. See them side-by-side.

C natural minor

Sentimental, tragic. Same pitches as E flat major.

C harmonic minor

Tragic, exotic, Middle Eastern.

C melodic minor

Mysterious, jazzy, very dark. Example: sixties Coltrane. See a blog post about melodic minor.

C dorian

Hip, sophisticated, jazzy. Same pitches as B flat major. Example: “So What” by Miles Davis.

C phrygian

Spanish/Flamenco. Same pitches as A flat major.

Synthetic Scales

These scales are based on regular, symmetric patterns. See them side-by-side.

C chromatic

All the piano keys. Freefalling, anxiety-producing. Same pitches as every other chromatic scale.

C whole tone

Dreamy, underwater. Every other key on the piano. Same pitches as D, E, F sharp, G sharp and A sharp whole tone scales. Example: Background parts in the Simpsons theme song.

C diminished

Dark, mysterious. Same pitches as E flat, G flat and A diminished scales. Examples: movies about Dracula.

Pentatonics and blues

Pentatonic scales have five notes. The blues scale is the minor pentatonic plus the flat fifth. See them side-by-side.

C major pentatonic

Joyful; widely used in world and folk music. Major scale with 4th and 7th removed. Same pitches as A minor pentatonic. Here’s a blog post about playing pentatonics on guitar.

C minor pentatonic

Rock; widely used in world and folk music. Minor scale with 2nd and 6th removed. Same pitches as E flat major pentatonic. Here’s a blog post about playing pentatonics on guitar.

C blues

Blues, obviously. Works great over major and minor chords. Minor pentatonic with flat fifth added.

Making chords

To make basic chords from the major and minor scales, start with the first note, then skip to the third, then the fifth. Using C Dorian, that’s C, Eb, G. This is called a triad, and it’s the simplest type of chord.

To extend the chords, add in the seventh, the second/ninth, the fourth/eleventh, and the sixth/thirteenth. Using C Dorian, that’s Bb, D, F, A. The more notes you add, the more complex and dense the chord becomes.

You can also skip or leave out notes: C, Eb, Bb, F for example. Also, you can double notes (especially the first/root.)

Don’t put fourths/elevenths into major chords unless you leave the third out, it sounds very dissonant.

Have fun!

Update: thanks to the enthusiastic users of Stumbleupon, this is by far the most-read post on this blog. Thanks for all the Stumbles, folks!