Lesson and Music Resources from Eddy Bugnut

A ‘model’ is something you compare something to.  If I wanted to build a guitar from scratch I might choose to model my design after an existing guitar, perhaps a Gibson Les Paul.  All music theory is relative which means it is based on how things are viewed in different contexts.  When it gets right down to it we can pretty much compare anything in the study of music theory to a specific ‘model’ scale, the mother of all scales.  The C Major scale.

The C Major scale contains the notes of all the white keys on a piano.  The black keys on a piano are the ’sharps’ and ‘flats’ while the white keys just have letter names.  The notes in a C Major scale are as follows.

Since we plan to use the C Major scale as a model for all major scales we will now analyze it in order to determine what makes it special.  A few weeks ago ago we learned the music alphabet which contained the following notes.

A (A#,Bb) B C (C#,Db) D (D#,Eb) E F (F#,Gb) G (G#,Ab) A

We also learned that the distance from one of the notes in the music alphabet to the next one is called a half step.

A – Bb = 1/2 step

E – F = 1/2 step

It should also be known that 2 half-steps equals a whole-step

E – F# = 2 x 1/2 step = 1 whole step

Knowing the above  information we can now analyze the C Major Scale and determine its structure.

 1 – 1 – 1/2 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1/2  ……THAT is the definition of a major scale.  You can start on any one of the 12 notes and if you make sure to follow the above sequence, you will have a major scale named after the first note.