Scales are really important. As you're going to see, they spin off into all sorts of directions. By itself, a scale is an organization of pitches, which are called sounds. This organization makes scales more than just a set of random pitches; it turns them into a set of sounds that musicians and theorists call a key. A key is a concept you will see in much more detail throughout this book.

A key is like a family: Everyone's related in some way. When you use a scale to compose a melody, those notes sound as though they belong together. When you stay exclusively in a scale, or a key, you get a very regular and expected sound.

Composers use scales to construct melodies. Because keys already have the built-in feeling of belonging together, or better yet, sounding together, it isn't hard to make a scale into a memorable melody. Hundreds of well-known melodies come from a scale of some sort. So think of a scale as a vocabulary for musical phrases, much like letters form words, which in turn form sentences—see the parallels?

When you play a scale one note at a time, you get a melody. When you take notes from scales and combine them by playing them together, you get harmony, which will be discussed in more depth later in this book. For now, just accept that you can break the vast majority of music down into melody and harmony.

Now that you know that scales can give you melodies and harmonies, you can begin to understand how important scales are. Practice your skills with the next etudes, which are all based on major scales.

ETUDES

ETUDE 3.1 Etude One

Spell major scales from the starting note

ETUDE 3.2 Etude Two

Spell major scales from the starting note

ETUDE 3.3 Etude Three

Can you find the mistake in each major scale?

ETUDE 3.4 Etude Four

In the following examples, find the half steps

ETUDE 3.5 Etude Five

In the following examples, notate the scale tones (1-7) beneath the notes

Major scales are not the only scales in the musical universe. The major scale is very important, but a true understanding of music would be incomplete without a look at the minor scale, the other basic scale of music. Now it's time for some minor exploration.