Scales and modes

Posted: Sat Feb 21, 2004 11:33 pm

This was originally posted by omarjamaludin in another thread, but I copied and paste it here :

Thanks, omarjamaludin,

first off you must know what a major scale ,which is the do re mi fa so la ti do .. it's supposed to be a very happy sounding scale as opposed to some of the modes and of course the minor scale ( which some ppl say sounds devilish )

the structure or progression for major scale goes like this
W W H W W W H

I know you are going 'what the helll ?? Ws and Hs? but let's take a few moment to understand what it means..

W W H W W W H

1) W stands for whole step which is basically going up/down two frets on the fretboard , like going from note C to D

2)H - half step is just going up/down one fret . like going from note E to F

so for sake of simplicity let's create our C major scale from the given pattern

when u apply the W W H W W W H pattern starting from C ,
you will get C major scale as shown below..

C -w- D -w- E -h- F -w- G -w- A -w- B -h- C

as you can see starting from C , go up whole step (W) you'll get D , go up another whole step you'll get a E , go up half-step (H) you'll get an F and so on according to the W W H W W W H pattern

so the major scales would be C D E F G A B C
you can try this one your guitar and it will give the that happy sounding doremi scale

the W W H W W W H progression is true for all major scales ..let say if you take F note .. the major scale would be

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

which gives us the F major scale - F G A Bb C D E F

so get a hold on this first :
1)what is major scale
2)it's note progression - the W W H W W W H
3) practice on your guitar

then esok aku citer lagi how all scales (modes , harmonic , melodic minor , etc) are derived from this major scale ... like the phrygian mode which is used by metallica alot in their metal days...

Thanks to omarjamaludin for the enlightening article. I will be covering different aspects of scales and modes in another article, concentrating on the applications of the theory that we have learnt in real life soloing. Watch this space!