Topic outline

  • Welcome!

    With this course you can practise:

    • Some common scales

    Recommended to study before this course:

    • Keys and scales 3

    • Pentatonic scales

      A pentatonic scale has 5 note. Penta = five.

      The major pentatonic scale is do-re-mi-so-la. It includes 1-2-3-5-6 degrees of a mejor scale.

      • C major pentatonic scale: C-D-E-G-A

      The minorpentatonic scale is la-do-re-mi-so. It includes same notes in a different order.

      • A minor pentatonic scale A-C-D-E-G


      There's no semitones. Therefore all pentatonic harmonies sounds quite pleasant without sharp dissonances.


    • Blues scale

      The term blues scale refers to several different scales with differing numbers of pitches and related characteristics. (Wikipedia)

      The most common is minor pentatonic scale added with 4# (or b5) note.


    • Whole note scale

      A whole tone scale is a scale in which each note is separated from its neighbors by the interval of a whole tone. In twelve-tone equal temperament, there are only two complementary whole tone scales, both six-note or hexatonic scales (Wikipedia)

      • C D E Fis Gis Ais
      • B Db Eb F G A
      There's many enhamonic variations of these: 

      • C D E Gb Ab Bb 
      • C# D# F G A B
      Etc. 

    • Chromatic scale

      The chromatic scale is a musical scale with twelve pitches, each a semitone above or below its adjacent pitches. As a result, in 12-tone equal temperament (the most common temperament in Western music), the chromatic scale covers all 12 of the available pitches. Thus, there is only one chromatic scale.

      The chromatic scale is usually notated with sharp signs when ascending and flat signs when descending. It is also notated so that no scale degree is used more than twice in succession (for instance, G♭ – G♮ – G♯).

      (Wikipedia)

      • C C# D D# E etc
      • C Cb Bb A Ab etc