Music Theory
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But first... Before we move onto Scales and Arpeggios you need to have a fundamental understanding of the musical alphabet or scales and arpeggios will not make sense to you. The entire musical alphabet consists of 12 notes and after that they repeat themselves in octaves. Every 12 notes is an octave. The entire musical alphabet ranges from A to G#. The "#" sign means a note is sharp by one half step from its natural note. A "b" sign means a note is one half step flat of its natural note. A natural note is neither flat nor sharp. On a piano all of the white keys are natural notes and all of the black keys are the sharps and flats of those natural notes. A half step equals one note. A full step equals two notes. A full step and one half equals three notes. Two full steps equals four notes and so on and so fourth.
Now that we understand sharps, flats and natural notes here is the entire musical alphabet for you. Notice I wrote the
alphabet out for you in two octaves seperated by color. After you go ascend upwards one half step at a time then after
twelve notes you have completed the musical alphabet. By continuing to ascend after that point by one half step at a time
the notes start over but in the next octave up. You can also descend as well as ascend.
Scales are formulas that are plugged into the musical alphabet which we already know. All of music theory is based off of the natural scale. The formula for a natural scale is 1) whole step, 2) whole step, 3) half step, 4) whole step, 5) whole step, 6) whole step, 7) half step and then repeat. To put this formula to use, first you have to pick a starting note and for sake of simplicity here I will start with the A note. You can start on any note you want. The note you start with, or the tonic note, typically represents to key signature being played. I am starting with the A note, so my key signature is the Key of A. You can start on a different note other than A and still be playing in the Key of A but we will get into that in the Modes section. The first step of this seven step process is a whole step. One whole step from A is B because we know that one whole step equals two notes and two notes ascending from A is B. Following this line of logic we can figure out that the rest entire natural scale starting with A is 1) A, 2) B, 3) C#, 4) D, 5) E, 6) F#, 7) G#, and the octave note which is 8) A. From here we can keep ascending if we wish, playing the same notes but one octave up. The natural scale consists of 7 notes, the 8th note is the octave of the first, the 9th note is the octave of the second and so on and so fourth. Most scales have only seven notes and then they repeat. Now that we understand how to figure out a scale based on the formula here is a table of different scales and their corresponding formulas for you to learn. Notice towards the bottom I show you scales that have more than or less than the typical seven notes.
Natural Scale
Arpeggios are scales that are broken up, played one note at a time. The most common arpeggio would be the first, third and fifth notes (tones) of a scale. Arpeggios can be played at any speed but they are typically played rapidly. For this example we will stick with the natural scale in the Key of A, starting with the A note. The first note of the natural scale in the key of A is A. The third note is C# and the Fifth note is E. So, in the Key of A you can play one note at a time A, C#, E and repeat in the next octave ascending or descending. An arpeggio doesn't have to be the first, third and fifth tones of a scale and it doesn't have to be the natural scale. You can break up any scale in any sequence that you would like. The reason an arpeggio is typically played in the one three five format is because a basic chord consists of the same three tones but they are played simultaneously rather than one note at a time. Chords typically have either three or four tones but have to have at least three to be a chord. © 2007 Eyesoffire.net |
Scales and Arpeggios
