Scales

 Ask a music student about scales, and you'll probably get a groan. Memories of hours spent playing scales on the piano, or their instrument. Memorizing so many different scales. Silly sayings about Battles and Charles. Maybe you don't have any experience with scales, and are coming into this topic with a clean slate. That's awesome!

Types of Scales

In short, a scale is a sequence of pitches in a particular order, based on a particular formula. In Western music (Western, as in European, not western as in country & western), there are a LOT of scales. In other cultures, there are also many, many scales as they sometimes divide pitches into even smaller increments than Western music, which is built upon early keyboard instruments (fun fact, the piano is actually relatively new). If you're looking at a keyboard, you can build several different scales on EACH white key AND black key. There's something like over 60 different scales. Major, minor, blues, pentatonic, and a bunch of different "modes" (they're built on a different formula than major scales)--how can we learn and teach them all?

We don't have to! 

In keeping with "sound before symbol", many elementary teachers start with the pentatonic scale when letting students improvise or compose. If you look at www.playxylo.com, go to the settings button, and switch to the Pentatonic option. You'll see it uses the pitches CDEGA. These five notes play well together, though I'm not a fan of neighbouring pitches being used together (C and D, D and E, G and A). Many primary instruments are adjustable to have just these 5 pitches. We can use a modified pentatonic scale with recorders. The low C (and D) can be challenging to play. Instead of the low C, use the higher C. The pentatonic scale works well with Boomwhackers!  Students could be in groups of 5 and compose their own little song (give some other requirements though!).

Major Scales

These are the scales that most people with a bit of music experience are familiar with. It's what the famous song "Do-Re-Mi" from Sound of Music represents. A major scale can be built on every white and black key of the piano--12. But wait! Every black key has two names! However, a scale on F sharp will sound the same as a scale built on G flat. Sound before symbol, but even 12 is too many for elementary. The curriculum mentions needing to know "scales in repertoire experienced" but learning the formula will mean that students aren't re-learning everything about a scale. We start with a C major, as it will use only white keys and can be played easily with hand bells, desk bells, Boomwhackers, glockenspiels. After that, students learn F, G, D and B flat major. 

But WHAT is a major scale? In the introduction, I mentioned a formula. For a major scale, it's:

T  T  S  T  T  T  S

But WHAT does that mean? Take a look at a piano keyboard. Go to Chrome Music Lab and click on Shared Piano. In settings, change octaves to 2, and show note names. Look at the C on the left. Play it and the following notes, ending with the next C. That's the C major scale. Notice that not every white key is separated by a black key. 

In the formula, the T represents a Whole Tone, which is two semi tones. A semi-tone (the S), is the next closest key to a particular key. Starting on the C, the next pitch is D--it is two semi-tones away (up to the black key and down to the D), or one whole tone. We can also call that a step. The next pitch after D is E, which again is two semi-tones (there's a black key between D and E), or a whole tone. After E is F.  There's no black key between them, so they are a semi-tone apart (the first S in the formula). We're sitting on F, go up a whole tone to G, another one to A, another to B. Then we need that last S, and there's no black key between B and C, so it's easy; we just end on the C. 

Using that formula, we can build the other scales really easily. We don't need to know how to read music, if we know the names of the piano keys (or have the chromatic Boomwhackers). This can be a fun activity for students!

Minor Scales

Although minor scales are mentioned in the Ontario Arts Curriculum, unless you and your students are really comfortable with major scales and are looking for deeper knowledge, I don't recommend going into minor scales with much detail. In primary years, students learn about minor vs major tonality, which many reduce down to sad vs happy. That's not always the case, but it's general enough. Every major scale has a corresponding minor scale, which can be made in 3 ways. So, you can see, it gets complicated. 

Blues Scales

Blues scales are introduced in grade 7, and can be a lot of fun, especially as students learn their instruments and learn to improvise. Basically, the formula is:  1, 2, flat 3, natural 3, 5, 6. There's also a minor blues scale formula! The blues scale built on a C major scale is C, D, Eflat, E, G, A. 

This is a fairly basic look at scales. There is another important component still to come--key signatures. That's more for paper and pencil learning though, so I'll save that for another day.

So why do scales make musicians groan? You can see that there are several different formulas to learn, and then learn to apply them to different pitches. Just like when students learn to multiply, they first learn the concept with manipulatives, and then they start learning the times tables. Some are easier than others and it takes awhile to develop mastery of all of them. Same with scales. Some are pretty easy; some are more common on some instruments than others. However, learning to play scales (eventually by memory), will create a fantastic muscle (and ear) memory that will help with overall musicianship. Melodies are built around scales and often include parts of a scale in them. Scales don't just exist out on their own--they are a critical part of composition and by extension, performing.

For a more detailed look at scales (including key signatures), take a look at my resource on Teachers Pay Teachers. Created for music teachers with no experience, with a focus on the Ontario curriculum; it also includes printables, activities, assessment ideas, and worksheets. It's available on its own, or as part of a growing bundle. 

I also have a free graphic organizer to help show needs to be covered in each grade based on the Ontario Music Curriculum!