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In music theory, the major scale is one of the diatonic scales. It is made up of eight notes, divided into two groups of four, the tetrachords. The pattern of steps in each tetrachord is, in ascending order:
- tone, tone, semitone, tone
The major scale has eight notes (an octave), which in solfege are the syllables "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, and Do." At the piano keyboard, the simplest major scale is C major (see figure 1). It is unique in that it is the only major scale to use only the white notes on the keyboard and, likewise, no sharps or flats on the musical staff.
Figure 1. The C major scale
Listen to the C major scale.
When writing out major (and minor scales), every line and space on the stave has to be filled, and no note can have more than one accidental. This has the effect of forcing the key signature to feature just sharps or just flats; ordinary major scales never include both.
The major scale is the same as the Ionian mode.
Constructing major scales
Analyzing scales with sharps
Scales and key signatures are closely linked in music. It is necessary to construct a key signature - consisting of a number of sharps or flats - in order to know which notes a particular major scale will have. An easy, but time consuming, way to do this would be to use the pattern of tone/tone/semitone/etc... given above. If we choose to write the scale of D-major, we know immediately that the scale begins on a D. The next note will be a tone above - an E. The note after that will also be a tone above, however it is not simply an F as would seem obvious. Because the difference between an E and an F is actually a semitone (look on a piano keyboard, there is no 'black note' in-between them) it is necessary to raise the F to become an F-sharp to achieve a difference of a whole tone.
This could be followed to create a whole scale, with all the sharps (or with a different scale, flats) put correctly in. However a cleverer way of constructing scales arises from analysing patterns in the whole series of major scales. Starting on the scale of C-major, there exists no sharps or flats. If you start a new scale on the 5th of C-major - G-major - you will find one sharp, augmenting the F. Starting the scale on the 5th of G major (a D) it will be necessary to put 2 sharps in - an F-sharp and a C-sharp. Writing this pattern out for all the scales looks like this:
C maj - 0 sharps
G maj - 1 sharp - F# (meaning F-sharp)
D maj - 2 sharps - F#, C#
A maj - 3 sharps - F#, C#, G#
E maj - 4 sharps - F#, C#, G#, D#
B maj - 5 sharps - F#, C#, G#, D#, A#
F# maj - 6 sharps - F#, C#, G#, D#, A#, E#
C# maj - 7 sharps - F#, C#, G#, D#, A#, E#, B#
In this table it can be seen that for each new scale (starting on the fifth of the previous scale) it is necessary to add a new sharp. The order of sharps which need to be added follows: F#, C#, G#, D#, A#, E#, B#. This pattern of the sharps can be easily remembered through the use of the mnemonic:
F C G D A E B
Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle
Looking closer, the last accidental added matches the tonic (first note) of the scale two-fifths before it (in this table, two lines up.) A useful rule for use in recognising major scales with sharps is that the tonic is also always one note above the last sharp.
Analysing major scales with flats
A similar table can be constructed for major scales with flats in them. In this case each new scale starts on the 5th below the previous one:
C maj - 0 flats
F maj - 1 flat - Bb (meaning B-flat)
Bb maj - 2 flats - Bb Eb
Eb maj - 3 flats - Bb Eb Ab
Ab maj - 4 flats - Bb Eb Ab Db
Db maj - 5 flats - Bb Eb Ab Db Gb
Gb maj - 6 flats - Bb Eb Ab Db Gb Cb
Cb maj - 7 flats - Bb Eb Ab Db Gb Cb Fb
Here, a similar pattern can be recognised, each new scale keeps all the flats of the previous scale but adds a new one following the sequence: Bb, Eb, Ab, Db, Gb, Cb, Fb. Interestingly this is the direct inverse of the pattern of sharps given above. Luckily (!) the mnemonic can now be reversed to form the sentence:
B E A D G C F
Battle Ends And Down Goes Charles' Father.
Again there is a similar, but reversed, relationship between tonics and accidentals. The tonic matches the second to last flat added on.
The circle of fifths
The information gathered from analysing scales can be used in constructing the circle of fifths:
This is a useful way of finding key signatures of major scales. Starting clockwise from the top C each new letter represents a new scale, a fifth above the one before it. This means that each new scale (clockwise) requires an extra sharp to be added to its key signature. The exact sharps to be added are found by reading off the letters starting from the F (to the left of the C.) For example, if we needed to know how many, and which, sharps a scale of E major requires, we note that E is at position 4 - it requires 4 sharps. These sharps are (reading off from F): F#, C#, G#, D#. If you were faced with a key signature of 5 sharps, you would count off 5 from the top to arrive at B - it is the scale of B major.
Fig 2. The B-major scale
Similarly, key signatures with flats can be created. Each new letter starting from F represents a new scale, and the position of the letter indicates how many flats it has. The actual flats are read anticlockwise from the Bb on position 2. Bb is on position 2, so it has 2 flats: Bb and Eb.
Harmonic properties
The major scale may predominate because of its unique harmonic properties. It allows:
- major or minor chords, both stable and consonant, on every scale degree but the seventh
- a diminished fifth in the seventh chord built on the fifth degree, the dominant
- motion by a minor second from the leading tone to the tonic
- root motion by fifths, the strongest root motion, from nearly every degree in either direction, the exceptions being up a fifth from the seventh degree, down a fifth from the fourth degree
Differences between major and minor
The minor scale may be considered as the sixth mode of a major scale, or otherwise a variation, such as a major scale with a lowered third, sixth, and seventh. The minor three is considered the hallmark of a minor scale, with the sixth and seventh being variabley raised while it remains unaltered. Constrastingly, changes of mode are often analyzed as relatively minor or trivial changes unless structurally supported as the root and overall key and tonality remains unchanged, relatively when compared to, for instance, modulation. The use of traids only avaible in the minor mode, such as, in C major, Ab-major, is relatively decorative chromaticism, considered to add color and weaken sense of key without entirely destroying or losing it.
In German theory by or derived from Hugo Riemann, the minor mode is considered the inverse of the major mode, an upside down major scale based on (theoretical) undertones rather than (actual) overtones (harmonics). The "root" of the minor triad is thus considered the top of the fifth, what in the US is called "the" fifth. So in C minor, the tonic root is actually G, and the leading tone is Ab (a halfstep), rather than, in major, the root being C and the leading tone B (a halfstep). Also, since all chords are analyzed as having a tonic, subdominant, or dominant function, with, for instance, in C, A-minor being considered the tonic parallel (US relative), Tp, the use of minor mode root chord progressions in major such as Ab-major-Bb-major-C-major is analyzed as sP-dP-T, the minor subdominant parallel, the minor dominant parallel, and the major tonic. (Gjerdingen, 1990)
Minor scales are sometimes said to have a more interesting, possibly sadder sound than plain major scales. The minor mode, with its variable sixth and seventh degrees, offers nine notes, in C: C-D-Eb-F-G-Ab-A-Bb-B, over majors' seven, in C: C-D-E-F-G-A-B. The interval strength, or lowest possible location in the harmonic series, and thus consonance and "stability", of minor triads is less than that of major, which interprets major as more "stable", a major triad being found in the 4th, 5th, and 6th harmonics of a pitch, while the minor being the 5th, 6th, and 7th.
de:Dur-Tonleiter
id:Skala mayor
ja:長音階
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