The major scale as a recipe
One pattern of tones and semitones that builds every major key.
Foundations — notes, intervals, keys · 9 min read
The major scale is a fixed pattern of steps: tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone. Start on any of the twelve notes, apply that pattern, and you have that note's major scale. From C it uses only white keys, which is why C is where everyone starts — but the recipe is identical from any other note.
The seven notes you get are the key. When someone says a song is in G, they mean these seven notes are the default palette and G is the note that feels like home. The other five notes are not forbidden; they are just visitors, and they will sound like visitors, which is often exactly what you want.
Each degree of the scale has a job. The first is home. The fifth is the strongest pull back toward home. The seventh sits one semitone below home and leans on it hard — that leaning note is what makes an ending feel like an ending.
- —Pattern: T T S T T T S, from any starting note.
- —A key is a shortlist of seven notes plus a home note.
- —The seventh degree leans into home; that lean is what resolves.
Build the major scale from D and from Bb by counting the pattern out loud. Check yourself against the scale view in ChordCraft Lab.
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