Lesson 1 – The Mother Of All Scales

The major scale is the benchmark scale that all chords and scales are derived from, so its a very important scale to learn in the big scheme of things. 

If you have seen the classic 1960’s movie “The Sound Of Music”, you may remember Julie Andrews singing a song with the words Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Te, Do. These two letter sounds are in fact a sequence referred to as solfege; a music education method used to teach pitch.

However there is a better system which simplifies solfege by just giving these 7 notes a number from 1 to 8- see below:

Remember the step sequence of, Tone Tone Semitone Tone Tone Tone Semitone and you will have the step sequence to play any major scale in any key

T (tone) = a distance of 2 frets

S (semi-tone) = a distance of 1 fret

Get Deep With The Key of C 

There are no sharps or flats in the key of C, its simply the alphabet moving up or down from C D E F G A B C. 

Give each letter its corresponding number and commit them to memory, as we will be referring to this system of numbers throughout the course.

Letter Number Sequence

  • C is the 1st
  • D is the 2nd
  • E is the 3rd
  • F is the 4th
  • G is the 5th
  • A is the 6th
  • B is the 7th
  • C is the 8th or simply the 1st again an octave above

We will stick to the key of C throughout the course to simplify the learning process. If you get deep with this key first moving into others will be a breeze, why? You have a sytsem in place and you have committed it to memory.

In the process you will be learning the notes on the fretboard just by taking on this challenge which is an added bonus.

GOAL FOR THIS LESSON

  1. Say this pattern over and over until its memorised : Tone – Tone – Semitone – Tone – Tone – Tone – Semitone 
  2. Memorise the letter number sequence