I would like to start this first lesson by describing how to create a scale. Eventually I want to show you how to understand the intervals in the scale and look at creating some chords from it. I will try and approach the theory from a practical point of view showing you how to do things that will be useful to you. First we should start somewhere simple however.

The chromatic scale contains all the notes of western harmony. Every note on a piano is in the chromatic scale. There are twelve notes in the scale and the difference between each note is referred to as a semitone. Two semitones are equal to a tone and hence there are six tones in the complete scale.

The scale above might look a little strange to you. It certainly looks like there are more than twelve notes. Each note is separated from the next one on the diagram by a comma. The notes that are separated by a slash (such as A#/Bb) are actually the same note with two names. The notes can be referred to by either of these names and they are known as enharmonic equivalents. The last note is simply the first note repeated again.

Well the answer is "you don't!" Not exactly anyway. The scale can sound a little strange by itself and is not used overmuch in music as it is. The problem is that there are too many notes there and so we need to take some away!

Unlike most texts that start by showing you the major scale, I am going to start by showing you the minor scale. There are a few reasons for this. One is that historically it was used prior to the major scale, one is that it is more commonly used in rock music and one is that I find it easier to teach it.

Often called the Relative Minor or Aeolian Mode, the Natural Minor scale can be found in many classic pieces of work. It is a mainstay of classic rock ballads and was very popular with classical composers.

The easiest way to create a natural minor scale is, starting from the root of the scale, to go up by: -

TONE, SEMITONE, TONE, TONE, SEMITONE, TONE, TONE.

In the key of A minor this gives you A B C D E F G A. This is seven notes and the A is repeated at the top an octave higher. It is called an octave because it is the eighth note. Incidentally, these are all the white notes on the piano. They are all natural notes because they contain neither sharps or flats.

I'm sure that you are thinking that this all seems fairly abstract and to be honest there isn't any obvious application of anything that I've said. After all, how can you play this scale yourself on the guitar and when you can you use this scale and where do chords come in? Well there are a lot of things left to learn, but this is definitely a good place to start. If you really want to learn about scales and get the most out of todays lesson then the best thing that you can do is to go away and start spelling out the natural minor scale in other keys. I would recommend E minor and D minor especially, but you should try all the keys.

Next time we can look at the notes on the guitar fretboard and putting some of this stuff into action. Don't forget that the technique column is worth checking out as well.