Help on major scales

it's the steps.

wwhwwwh

w is whole or two steps, h is half or one

write out the chromatic scale,

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

apply that pattern above to anywhere on the scale. Start with C and you get all natural notes.

Check out David's musical genome article

Do yourself a favor and write them all out. If someone just posts them for you it defeats the purpose.

The whole exercise should take you five minutes max.

When you write them all out, don't do it C C# Db ...

Rather.. go in fiths -- C, G, D, A, E . ..

It creates a nice little pattern that's very usefull to know later on.

Here's a table that you might find useful.

Key Minor Signature 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
C major A minor C D E F G A B
G major E minor # G A B C D E F#
D major B minor ## D E F# G A B C#
A major F# minor ### A B C# D E F# G#
E major C# minor #### E F# G# A B C# D#
B major G# minor ##### B C# D# E F# G# A#
F# major D# minor ###### F# G# A# B C# D# E#
F major D minor b F G A Bb C D E
Bb major G minor bb Bb C D Eb F G A
Eb major C minor bbb Eb F G Ab Bb C D
Ab major F minor bbbb Ab Bb C Db Eb F G
Db major Bb minor bbbbb Db Eb F Gb Ab Bb C
Gb major Eb minor bbbbbb Gb Ab Bb Cb Db Eb F

YOu have a test on this in 4 days and nobody told you this stuff yet?

Seems kind of odd. :?

That table is perfect, thanks. The book only lists them in the "cirlce or fifths" and they written out on the G and F clefs. My biggest problem right now is Im not sure as to why some keys have sharps and some dont, that's what Im going to study.

Well, read the table down from C (no sharp) to F# (6 sharps) and you have the right side of the circle of fifths, the sharp side.

Read it from the F (1 flat) to Gb (6 flats) and you have the left side (the flat side).

Note that you always prefer the key with the simpler signature, so you use Db (5 flats) instead of C# (7 sharps). You can use either of the enharmonic keys F# and Gb because their signature has 6 sharps or flats in both cases.

Here is the circle of 5ths, drawn another way:

C
F G

Db B
F#

The reason some keys have sharps and others haven't is to maintain the same distance between the notes.

If you used no sharps in the key of G, the 7th note (F) would be a wholetone below the octave, while the correct note, the major 7th (F#) should be a semitone below the octave.

As Helgi pointed out, sharps or flats are used to maintain the interval spacing in the scale.

Whether you use sharps or flats is actually determined by the starting note... you want to end up with one of each letter name.

Let's take that G scale for example: if you wrote the 7th note as the enharmonic Gb, you'd have this:

G-A-B-C-D-E-Gb-G

With two 'G' notes and no 'F' notes. In order to keep one of each letter, you'd have to use F# instead of Gb. If you started from F, you'd get:

F-G-A-Bb-C-D-E-F

Writing the Bb as A# would give you two 'A' notes and no 'B' notes.

That's why some use sharps, and others use flats.

the major scale always goes "whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step" wwhwwwh

this is regardless of which key you start at. if you look at a piano layout, you'll realize why some keys have sharps and some have flats.

Also note that there are enharmonic keys. Any key whose scale starts on a normal enharmonic note (F#/Gb) has two namse and can be written with sharps or flats in the key signature.

Thanks for all the help. let's see how I do tomorrow.