Scales/Keys
If we consider music as a language then scales/keys are the dialect - the variations that
can be found within a language that we must be able to understand. Letʼs have a look at
some facts about keys:
i)There are 2 main types of scale/key - Major and Minor (major sounds happy, minor
sounds sad).
ii) There is a major and a minor scale for every note (including sharps and flats) - this
means that there are 12 major and 12 minor scales.
iii) Each scale has a different number of sharps and flats in it.
So, when a composer is writing a piece they will have to decide the following....
i)Which key (or scale) to write it in.
ii)Whether to write it in major or minor (this will largely depend on what mood they are
wanting to create).
iii)Which note of the scale to write it on (different notes have distinctive tones to them. e.g.
Bb Major is a very rich key, whilst F# Major is very bright in tone). They will also need to
think about the range of the instrument they are writing for and the difficulty of the piece
(keys with a greater number of sharps and flats tend to be more difficult to play in).
Letʼs start with the easiest key - C Major.
Itʼs the easiest because C Major has no sharps or flats. So, if you play the white notes on a
keyboard starting at C and ending at the C above then you will have played a C Major
scale (have a go at this on a keyboard).
Keys get harder the more sharps and flats are added - have a look at the following list of
the Major scales with their relative Minor scales (Iʼll explain relative minors in a mo-
ment)....
MAJOR RE L A T I V E
MINORSHARPS/FLATS
C A NoneG E F#D B F#, C#A F# F#, C#, G#E C# F#, C#, G#, D#B G# F#, C#, G#, D#, A#