Scales and more of music theory

Introduction to Scales

Scales are the basis of music and they define what gets played on the guitar, a little bit of music theory is in order here as we race through to all major and minor scales(You could learn structured music theory as a course too).  Scales are “Do Rae Me ….” played vertically on the guitar, or horizontally, but with horizontal traverse you would get only a single octave,.  If you play a scale, for instance G_major,  “Do Rae Me…” is played ascending, then continued to the next notes and then played descending and with vertical traverse, you can get upto 4 octaves or so on the guitar.  Take a look at the scale notes for G_major as below:

This diagram depicts G_major all along the fret board, though, to play Do Rae Me … requires only the 2nd-5th frets and we can play at least two octaves here. Some people think that the scales are everything, me included, and from the above scale diagram, can be found the 5 shapes, not notes, of G, E, D, C, A. This is the CAGED system that is being talked on the internet so much. If you find the G shape in the G_major scale, the G chord (made up of notes G B & D) will be found on the top of the fretboard, and next find the E shape, even though its shaped like an E, it will play the G chord or G B & D. You can find the E shape starting the 4th fret. Similarly you will find the D, C and A shapes on the fret board.

Always remember that the chord and shape are two different things, while chord actually play the notes comprising of their name, the shape is only the shape pattern while it plays the notes of the major, in this case G_major

Types of Scales

Scales can be divided into:

1. Major scale (In this post we deal mainly with G_major, one of the more popular majors)
2. Minor scale (G_major has a relative minor in E_minor, we look at this here)

It can also be divided into:

1. Pentatonic   1 2 3 5 6 (5 notes per scale)
2. Diatonic.      1 3 5 ( 3 to 4 notes per scale)

The Pentatonic music scale is made up of 5 notes and is typically played with the blues, and though blues scale is a tough genre, it still is relevant for music scales for beginners. G_major pentatonic is made up of the following notes: G A B D E, also it has the E pentatonic minor as its relative minor and both scales include the same notes, but with different root notes. The formula for G_major pentatonic can be reproduced as below:

W. W. H. W. W. W. H

G. A. B. C. D. E. F#

The 4th note and the 7th note don’t exist for any pentatonic scale and it is G A B D E notes.

The Diatonic scale, on the other hand, for G_major, is reproduced as below:

W. W. H. W. W. W. H

G. A. B. C. D. E. F#

and only the 1st, 3rd and 5th notes are taken to reproduce G_major as:

G B D, though, sometimes the 7th note is added, that is an F#.

Further to this, every major scale will have 7 modes, which implies each major scale can be played in 7 different ways:

1. Ionian.
2. Dorian
3. Phrygian
4. Lydian
5. Mixolydian
6. Aeolian
7. Locrian

For instance, G_major can be played in Dorian mode as follows:

W  H   W   W  W  H   W

G   A   Bb  C   D   E    F

1    2   b3   4   5   6b  7

To play G_major in Ionian mode will mean:

W.   W.   H.   W.   W.   W.   H

G.    A.   B.    C.   D.    E.    F#

https://kawapeople.com/wp/blog/2023/01/27/beginners-guitar-blues-a-learning-method/

The Ionian mode for G_major is the one we play normally, as can be seen by the above example. We won’t go into an explanation of the other modes and more can be found out here about the rest of the modes.

Harmonising the Major scales

Harmonising a major scale means to build chords for every single note in the scale, it is the classic music scales and chords system. For example, for the G major scale which has the notes G A B C D E and F#, we build chords for each one of these notes. These notes come from the theory we have studied in the introduction of this article, and as can be seen, for a major chord, we take the notes from the 1st, 3rd and the 5th note in the scale. This is the process of jumping a note to reach the notes in the chord, and is called harmonisation. In the G major scale we can achieve harmonisation by jumping over the other note and forming a chord from each of the notes in the scale. For G major this would imply:

G B D
A C E
B D F#
C E G
D F# A
E G B
F# A# C#

If we now check the music scales and chords, the distance between G and B is 2 tones and this is called a major 3rd, while the distance between B and D notes is one and half tones called a minor 3rd. When measured from the root, any major chord must have 2 tones between the root and the 3rd notes and three and a half notes between the root and the 5th notes. A three and a half tones distance is called a perfect 5th. Most major, minor and dominant 7 chords contain a perfect 5th.

Now check out the second chord containing the notes A C and E, distance between A and C is one and a half tone, a minor 3rd, and the distance between C and E is 2 tones, a major 3rd. Any chord starting with one and half tones is a minor and the root note is A, so we get A_minor chord. It still has the perfect 5th, as you can see, the A_minor chord.

Letting you handle the rest of the harmonised chords, we get the sequence as follows for the chord-scale system:
I G_major
ii. A_minor
iii. B_minor
IV. C_major
V. D_major
VI. E_minor
VII F#_major

The above is the harmonised G_major scale.

Minor Scales

Knowledge of Scales is incomplete without some information about minor scales, as we have seen above in this post, where we described the major scales as the 800 year foundation of western music, minor scales too have their techniques, and as we will see, are of the following kinds:

1. Relative Minor
2. Natural Minor

Each major key has a related minor key, and the minor scale shares the same notes as the major scale, though the root note will change as would the locations of other notes, and as mentioned earlier, we say that the major scale and the relative minor scale share the same key signature. Sometimes the relative minor is also called the Natural Minor or the Aeolian mode.

To find the Relative minor notes for a major scale, choose the 6th note on the major scale and write down the minor scale notes, for instance, for G_major:

G. A. B. C. D. E. F#

E is the sixth note, and now writing for E_minor we get:

E. F#. G. A. B. C. D

E_minor is the relative minor of G_major, and contains the same notes as its major key.

Natural minor has the following construction:

Tone. Semitone. Tone. Tone. Semitone. Tone. Tone

The formula can be written as: 1 2 b3. 4. 5. b6. b7

There are one and half tones between the 1st and 3rd note, therefore a minor 3rd, and further the note G is a full tone below the note A, which is a b7, and still further if we check E_major: E F# G# A B C# D# , the sixth note is a C# and we just have to flatten it to get the natural minor as above.

E F#. G. A. B. C. D

The minor scales can further be divided into:

1. Harmonic minor
2. Melodic minor

Like the major scale, the minor scale can be harmonised into chords.

The Harmonic minor is nothing but the raising by a semitone of the 7th note from the natural minor, so if the natural E_minor is. E. F#. G. A. B. C. D, its harmonic minor would be:

E. F#. G. A. B. C. D#

The Melodic minor scale is defined as:

1. 2. b3. 4. 5. 6. 7 and can be looked upon as E_major with a flattened 3rd.

So, we get the the Melodic minor of E as :

E. F#. G. A. B. C#. D#

This section of this post about completes the music theory section of Scale theory.

Conclusion

As a quick recap, you will see, that we have studied the scales in music theory, to be of the following kind:

Major Scales and Minor scales, further the different modes of the major scales, the minor scales and the Harmonic and Melodic minors. Also studied was the construction of Major scales, Minor scales, modes of major scales as well as the construction of Harmonic and Melodic minor scales.

Where the topic of scales is concerned, there is so much that can be said, but I hope this was enough to whet the appetite for more sessions on music theory.

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