Scales – Visual Aids to Scale Building
Visual Piano Scale Tabs–Tetrachord View
Scales – Visual Aids to Scale Building
Explanation
Piano scales have shapes similar to piano chords. Use these shapes as a visual aid to scale structure.
We will use broken lines for scales and solid lines for chords.
Table 1 gives C and the sharp scales.
Table 2 gives C and the flat scales.
Structure of Major Scale (Ionian)
Scales are built in two halves called tetrachords (Lower and Upper.) Each tetrachord contains four notes.
x x x x x x x x T= Tonic
T 1 1 ½ 1 1 1 ½ 1= whole tone (two piano keys)
Lower Upper ½ = ½ tone (one piano key)
Interval Whole: Whole: Half: Whole: Whole: Whole: Half
Piano keys T 2 2 1 2 2 2 1
do re mi fa so la ti do
Building Scales
If you take the upper tetrachord of the C major scale and add a tetrachord to the right you get all the scales for the sharp keys.
If you take the lower tetrachord of the C major scale and add a tatrachord to the left you get all the scales for the flat keys.
Observation:
All the scales in the area of the two black keys (C, Db, D, Eb, E) have the same shape for both tetrachords.
