Chord Scales - Part 1: The Major Scale
(07 Apr 03)
Major Scales Overview: Cycle of Fifths
The Cycle of Fifths offers the best visual overview of all 12 major scales and their accidentals. All scales that use sharps are listed on the right side - scales using flats are on the left side.
Note that I did not list the unpractical scales C#, Cb, and F#. They are represented by their enharmonic equivalent of Db, B, and Gb.
If you follow the different roots clockwise you'll notice that they are the interval of a perfect fifth apart. (c to g = fifth) - that's where the Cycle of Fifths got it's name from. Furthermore, we see that the series of major scales is the same as we already created using our tetrachords.
It might be helpful to compare the Cycle of Fifths with a clock when trying to memorize it - like "Noon" is C major (no accidentals), or "3 o'clock" is A major (3 sharps) etc....
First Exercises
Before you go through the exercises, I recommend that you first spend some time learning the different major scales. Print and fill out this section (The solutions are at the end of this article).
Make up your own exercises. Would be cool if you post these in the forums for all of us.
1) How many accidentals does each major scale take , and what are their names?
Example: Eb = 3 flats = bb eb ab
G =
Bb =
B =
Ab =
Gb =
E =
D =
F =
2) Write out the requested major scales
Example: G = g a b c d e f#
B =
A =
Eb =
Db =
F =
D =
3) Draw the Cycle of Fifths
Quick Review
Let's take a quick look at what we have learned so far:
The formula for a major scale is 
We set up rules to fill out the formula above:- only sharps or only flats within a scale
- all natural note names have to be used once - and only once; where necessary we have to add accidentals.
We created all possible major scales that use sharps and flats by using tetrachords.
We learned the series of "sharpened" and "flattened" notes and memorized how many sharps or flats a scale takes.
To help us memorize all major scales we learned the Cycle of Fifths.
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