Scale degrees
Let's keep the number of things we are doing and learning down to just the most important, by being both broadly and immediately useful. The concept of scale degrees is arguably the most important and essential idea to put us closer to our goal of understanding how music is put together. We will simplify but not oversimplify and study until our use is consistently solid in both playing and understanding. Here are the highlights at a glance
Seven notes, seven numbers.
Our default reference scale is the major scale
The first note is called the one, the second is called the two etc.
The chord and scale formulas will follow.
To review the major scale and the terms we use the pattern of notes in whole and half steps is WWHWWWH or 1-2-34-5-6-78 with the half steps (distance of one fret on the guitar) between the 3rd and 4th degrees and 7th and 8th degrees.
Wikipedia has the boil-down:
In music theory, a scale degree is the name given to a particular note of a scale[3] to specify its position relative to the tonic (the main note of the scale). The tonic is considered to be the first degree of the scale, from which each octave is assumed to begin.
Any musical scale may be thought to have degrees. However, the notion of scale degree is most commonly applied to scales in which a tonic is specified by definition, such as the 7-tone diatonic scales (e.g. the C-major scale C–D–E–F–G–A–B, in which C is the tonic). As for the 12-tone chromatic scale, the selection of a first degree is possible in theory, but arbitrary and not meaningful, because typically all the notes of a chromatic scale have the same importance.
The expression scale step is sometimes used as a synonym of scale degree, but it may also refer, perhaps more properly and less ambiguously, to the distance, or interval, between two successive scale degrees (see Steps and skips). Indeed, the terms whole step and half step are commonly used as interval names. The number of scale degrees and the distance between them together define a scale.
If you'd like to get deeper into Wikipedia's explanation of scale degrees
Students, your dropbox folders have the specifics that we will go over in lesson and some backing tracks you can play along to so you can hear what we are talking about. This type of information can also be seen and heard on my Youtube playlists. If you are not a student but would like to be contact me at blake@blakenix.org
Seven notes, seven numbers.
Our default reference scale is the major scale
The first note is called the one, the second is called the two etc.
The chord and scale formulas will follow.
To review the major scale and the terms we use the pattern of notes in whole and half steps is WWHWWWH or 1-2-34-5-6-78 with the half steps (distance of one fret on the guitar) between the 3rd and 4th degrees and 7th and 8th degrees.
Wikipedia has the boil-down:
In music theory, a scale degree is the name given to a particular note of a scale[3] to specify its position relative to the tonic (the main note of the scale). The tonic is considered to be the first degree of the scale, from which each octave is assumed to begin.
Any musical scale may be thought to have degrees. However, the notion of scale degree is most commonly applied to scales in which a tonic is specified by definition, such as the 7-tone diatonic scales (e.g. the C-major scale C–D–E–F–G–A–B, in which C is the tonic). As for the 12-tone chromatic scale, the selection of a first degree is possible in theory, but arbitrary and not meaningful, because typically all the notes of a chromatic scale have the same importance.
The expression scale step is sometimes used as a synonym of scale degree, but it may also refer, perhaps more properly and less ambiguously, to the distance, or interval, between two successive scale degrees (see Steps and skips). Indeed, the terms whole step and half step are commonly used as interval names. The number of scale degrees and the distance between them together define a scale.
If you'd like to get deeper into Wikipedia's explanation of scale degrees
Students, your dropbox folders have the specifics that we will go over in lesson and some backing tracks you can play along to so you can hear what we are talking about. This type of information can also be seen and heard on my Youtube playlists. If you are not a student but would like to be contact me at blake@blakenix.org
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