The Major Scale is the primary scale in music. If you can learn these scales in all twelve keys then you will know 80% of playing contemporary music.
This is because most all contemporary songs are made up of major and minor chords. And when you know your scales then you can find all the major and minor chords.
Building The Scale
Most scales are made of seven different notes in a descending or ascending order. This goes for this scale. It also includes the octave note at the end of the scale.
To find the major scale you need to know your whole steps and half steps. This scale is made up of five whole steps and two half steps.
The first thing you have to do is locate the root, or starting note of the scale. This will be the first note of the scale. The first note of the C Scale would be a C.
From C you now count up Whole Step – Whole Step – Half Step – Whole Step – Whole Step – Whole Step – Half Step or W -W – W – H – W – W – W – H. You should now find yourself at another C one octave above where you started.
This is simple to do in the key of C because the key of C has no sharps or flats so the C scale will be all white notes.
In Other Keys
If you know how to find the C scale then you can easily find the scale in other keys.
Make sure you take the time to memorize the scales for every key.
Conclusion
The whole step half step pattern is used to make it easy to find scales for each key.
You can also use this scale as a part of your piano warm-up exercises. I try and do this scale three time perfectly for each key. This will help you with speed and stamina for your piano playing.
It is important that you memorize all of the twelve scales on the piano. This will help you later on as you start to learn pieces of music that is in more difficult keys. Also it will help you if you are playing chord piano because you know which notes you can play in certain keys.
