The Major Scale, Keys and Key Signatures

You already know the major scale. Sing "do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do" and that is it. What theory adds is the recipe, so you can build the same scale starting on any note and know exactly which notes belong.

The recipe

Play the white keys of a piano from C up to the next C. You get C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C. Now look at the gaps, using what lesson 1 taught you: C to D is a whole step, D to E whole, E to F half, F to G whole, G to A whole, A to B whole, B to C half.

Write that down in shorthand:

W  W  H  W  W  W  H

That pattern is the major scale. Every major scale in the world follows it. The only thing that changes is the starting note, and when you start somewhere other than C, a few notes have to be sharped or flatted to keep the pattern intact.

There is one spelling rule. Each letter name gets used exactly once in a major scale. That is why the seventh note of G major is called F# and never Gb: you already used G at the start. The same rule explains why F major has a Bb instead of an A#. F major is F, G, A, Bb, C, D, E. If you called the fourth note A#, you would have two A's and no B.

The keys you will actually use

Here are the major scales that cover nearly every folk, country, bluegrass and gospel song you will play. I built every one of these with the pattern above and checked each against the one-letter-per-note rule.

Guitar players live in the top five rows. G, D, A, E and C all have chords you can play with open strings ringing, which is why bluegrass jams sound the way they do. The flat keys (F, Bb, Eb) are home turf for horn players, church pianists and a lot of gospel choirs, because those keys sit well on brass instruments and in many singers' voices. If a church pianist hands you a song in Eb, do not panic. Lesson 7 shows how a capo gets you there with shapes you already know.

What "in a key" means

A song in G treats G as home. The melody and chords mostly use the seven notes of the G major scale, and the song feels finished when it lands back on G. Play the last chord of almost any country song and it will be the key's home chord. Stop a song on any other chord and the room leans forward waiting.

That home note is called the tonic, and we number it 1. The other scale notes get numbers 2 through 7. Those numbers matter more than the letters, because they stay the same in every key. The 5 of G is D. The 5 of C is G. The 5 of A is E. Whatever the key, the 5 does the same job. Lesson 5 builds a whole chart system on that idea.

Key signatures without fear

Sheet music puts the key's sharps or flats at the start of every line so the writer does not have to mark them on every note. That cluster is the key signature. Most chord-chart songwriters rarely need it, but hymnals, church choir folders and fake books use it, and two small tricks let you read it in about three seconds.

First, sharps and flats always appear in a fixed order.

• Sharps: F, C, G, D, A, E, B. One way to hold it: "Father Charles Goes Down And Ends Battle."
• Flats: B, E, A, D, G, C, F. The same list backward. "Battle Ends And Down Goes Charles' Father."

Now the tricks.

• Sharp keys: look at the last sharp, go up a half step, and that is the key. Two sharps (F#, C#): the last one is C#, up a half step is D. The key is D major.
• Flat keys: the second-to-last flat is the key. Three flats (Bb, Eb, Ab): second to last is Eb, so the key is Eb major. The one exception is a single flat, which you just memorize: one flat is F major.
• No sharps or flats: C major (or A minor, see below).

Check the table above against the tricks. Four sharps ends on D#, up a half step is E. It works every time.

Relative minor: the same notes, a sadder home

Every major key has a minor key that shares all of its notes. Start the C major scale on its sixth note, A, and play up to the next A: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, A. No sharps or flats, same seven notes, but with A as home it sounds darker. That is A natural minor, the relative minor of C major.

To find any relative minor, go to the 6 of the major scale. Or count down three half steps from the major key's name. The pairs you will meet most:

This is why a key signature with one sharp could be G major or E minor. Look at the last chord or last melody note. If the song settles on Em, it is in E minor.

Plenty of old ballads and murder songs sit in minor keys, and a minor verse that turns to the relative major in the chorus is one of the oldest tricks in folk writing. You hear the room brighten without a single new note being added.