EASIEST Pattern to Memorize the HARDEST Major Scales

i'm going to show you a really cool pattern that allows you to only memorize half of the major scales in order to know all of them and you only need to memorize the easier half of the major scales what do i mean by the easier ones i mean the major scales that don't have as many sharps or flats in them if you don't know what the circle of fourths and fifths is that's totally fine you don't need to know what it is in order to understand this pattern i'm going to show you but for those of you who do know what this is basically this pattern allows you to just memorize the key signatures or the major scales that are on the top half of the circle okay let's get to it okay so what do you notice between these two scales take a look at them and i'll tell you three different things that i notice when i look at them so the first thing that i notice is that they both start with the letter d okay they start on different notes because this one starts on the note d and this one starts on the note d flat and d and d flat are two different notes however they both start with the letter d right that's my first observation i also notice that one of the scales has sharps and the other one has flats and the third thing i notice is that the two notes that are sharpened in this d major scale on top this f sharp and c sharp those are the two notes that are not flattened in this d flat major scale right f sharp and c sharp and then f natural and c natural they're the only two notes that are not flattened in this d flat major scale and all the natural notes d e g a and b are the ones that are flattened in the other scale so that's pretty interesting let's look at another pair of major scales okay so here are two more scales g major and g flat major and aha i see the exact same pattern going on with these two skills as well do you they both start on different notes right this one starts on a g and this one starts on a g flat but they still start with the same letter right they both start with the letter g and i can see that one scale has sharps and the other one has flats and the one note that is sharpened in this g major scale which is f sharp is the one note that is not flattened in the g flat major scale right it's an f natural and all the natural notes in the g major scale which are g a b c d and e are the notes that are flattened in our g flat major scale so i don't know about you but i'm starting to see a pattern here so let's try something out i'm gonna write out one major scale and then using the rules of this pattern we'll see if we can write out the notes in another major scale that starts with the same letter but first let's quickly clarify what exactly are the rules of this pattern so for our example let's use an a major scale okay so here's our a major scale and really there are only two rules or steps to this pattern so the first step is we ask ourselves does this scale have sharps or flats in it and whichever one it has we're going to do the opposite of that in the other scale so tell me does this have sharps or flats in it this a major scale it has sharps right c f sharp and g sharp so that means this other scale that we're going to write out is going to have flats in it okay and step two so any of the notes that have uh accidentals in this first scale and accidental would just mean like a sharp or a flat okay so any of the notes that have accidentals or sharps or flats those are going to be the natural notes in this new scale so c sharp is going to be just a c natural okay f sharp will be just an f natural and g sharp will be just a g natural cool and then any of the natural notes in the first scale are going to become the notes with the accidentals in the second scale and so what type of accidental am i going to use am i going to put a sharp or a flat i'm going to put a flat right because we already established it this new scale needs to have flats in it because this one has sharps so this one has flats so i'm going to take all these natural notes which are just a b d and e and i'm going to flatten those so we're going to have a flat b flat d flat and e flat and hey there you go this is our a flat major scale and i think it's important to point out that basically what we're doing is a note will never go from one type of accidental to another type of accidental right so this g sharp wouldn't turn into a g flat right it would only turn into a g natural so basically where any accidental note in one scale turns into a natural note in the other and any natural note in one scale turns into an accidental in the other so we're trading just naturals for accidentals we're not trading naturals for naturals we're not trading accidentals for accidentals only a natural can turn into an accidental and only an accidental can turn into a natural does that make sense if not keep watching and you're going to get the hang of it let's check out another scale okay so here's an f major scale let's work through this one now together so does this scale have sharps or flats in it i see a flat right b flat so what are we going to have in our new scale are we going to have sharps or flats we're going to have sharps right because if this one has flats this one is going to have sharps got it so that's the first step and now the next thing we're going to do is any note that was an accidental note in this first scale becomes a natural note in our new scale so we only have one note that has an accidental which is the b flat right so that we know that's going to become a b natural then any of the natural notes in our first scale what is going to happen to those notes are we going to sharpen them or flatten them or keep them as natural notes well we're going to sharpen all of them so f becomes f sharp g becomes g sharp a becomes a sharp c sharp d sharp and e-sharp right and remember they're all sharpened instead of flattened because this scale has flats so this one has to have sharps always has to be opposites and hey what do you know you just figured out the notes in an f-sharp major scale so f major scale and f sharp major scale not too bad right okay so how about a b flat major scale now so first step does this scale have sharps or flats in it it has flats so what is our new scale going to have is it going to have sharps or flats it's going to have sharps right because if this one has flats our new one has to have sharps so the next step any of the notes that have accidentals in this first scale which are b flat and e flat right those are the only two notes that have accidentals they are going to become our natural notes in the new scale because if it has an accidental and one scale it has to be a natural note in the other right so this b flat is going to be a b and this e flat is going to be an e and then any note that was a natural note in our first scale so that would be c d f g and a those notes are going to have accidentals in our new scale and are we going to put flats on them or sharps on them remember the first step we we established this one has sharps so therefore the c d f g and a are going to have sharps put on them so c sharp d sharp f sharp g sharp and a sharp and hey check that out you just wrote out the notes in a b major scale now so far in this video we've just been taking easier major scales and using them to figure out the notes in more difficult major scales and i'm considering this scale of b flat to be easier than this scale of b because this scale only has two flats whereas this scale has five sharps right so just based on the amount of accidentals we have i would say that this b flat scale is quote easier unquote than this b major scale to memorize however this pattern works in both directions so we could uh take a more difficult scale and find the easier scale based on it so you know friend let's actually work through that right now so for instance let's say you knew the notes in your b major scale but you didn't know the notes in a b flat major scale so this is where we're going to be starting with and we're just going to go the opposite direction just so you can see that it it works in both directions so the first thing i'm going to do is i'm going to say okay well this scale this b major scale does it have sharps or flats it has sharps right so our new scale is going to have flats in it right and any of the notes that did have accidentals in them so the c sharp d sharp f sharp g sharp and a sharp those are going to be what in our new scale those are going to turn into natural notes right so i'm going to have a c natural a d natural f natural g natural and a natural right and then the two notes that were natural which were b and e those notes are now going to have an accidental and are they going to have a flat or sharp they're going to have flats right because we said this new this new scale is going to have flats so that's a b-flat and an e-flat cool so as you can see it works in both directions so i just wanted to put that out there [Applause] okay now let's check out an e-flat major scale and let's work through this one together so first step does this scale have sharps or flats in it it has flats in it right so what is our new scale going to have it's going to have sharps right okay so we know that much now the next thing we're going to do is we're going to say okay all these notes that have accidentals in this first scale so that would be this e flat a flat and b flat those notes are going to be our natural notes in the new scale right so this e flat is going to turn into an e natural a flat is going to turn into an a natural b flat will turn into a b natural right and then what happens to these natural notes in the top scale so this f this g the c and this d they are going to turn into you tell me f sharp g sharp c sharp and d sharp isn't that so cool and easy i just love this because you really can only memorize just the top half of all your major scales and then you'll automatically be able to figure out all those trickier major skills so it's just such a cool pattern there's so many awesome patterns in music it's just an endless joy discovering them and analyzing them and sharing them with you guys so there's only one more scale left to check out so let's just do that and then we will have completed every single major scale cool so this is our c major scale and i saved this one for last because it's a little bit unique because as you can see this one has no sharps and no flats so how do we know what the new scale is going to have is it going to have sharps or flats since we can't do the opposite of whatever this one has well we can actually have both a c sharp major scale and a c flat major scale both of those are real major scales so let's start with our c sharp major scale all right well i'll just i know it's going to be a c sharp and hey what's our pattern again basically anything that's a natural turns into an accidental right so we're gonna basically put a sharp not basically we are going to put a sharp in front or after every single note we're going to sharpen every single one see c sharp sharp e f sharp g sharp a sharp and v sharp that is your c sharp major scale okay now let's check out a c flat major scale so c flat major scale we're going to start with our c flat and hey again same rules apply if all these are naturals we're going to put an accidental on all these notes so it's going to be c flat d flat e flat f flat g flat a flat and b flat whoa so yeah actually the c c flat and c sharp are pretty easy because c sharp has all sharps c flat has all flats and c major has no sharps no flats and if you're someone who's asking yourself hey i thought there was no such thing as a c flat note um then i have a video that you need to watch i i'm just saying this because i get this comment a lot in my videos so if you're one of those people who is very confused by this note c flat or f-flat i'm going to put a link to a video in the description below and i want you to check that out also if you are curious about learning more about the circle force and fifths because it totally ties into everything we're doing with major skills and and just being able to memorize your major scales um i will also include two videos about the circle of fours and fifths in the description below as well and that is it we just went through every single major scale so as you can see it's actually pretty easy i mean as long as you know these the major scales e flat b flat f c g d and a you also know all these scales on the bottom half of the circle and that's just i think awesome now i have a nice handout that visually shows you the patterns in all these scales as well as a quiz to help you practice remembering these patterns and many other music theory worksheets and quizzes and handouts and you can download all of those printable pdf worksheets and quizzes in a link in the description below as i said there are so many cool patterns within major scales and this is just one of many that i wanted to show you because i think it's so cool and helpful i hope you found this video helpful and if you enjoyed it at all don't forget to give it a thumbs up and leave me a comment as well it really helps me out a lot and if you're new to my channel hello and welcome i would love if you could subscribe because i post one video a week and i would love to have you here and if you want to be notified whenever i do post a new video don't forget to turn on your bell notification alright guys that is it for today thank you so much for watching have a wonderful rest of your day or night and stay tuned for next week bye you

Channel: Gracie Terzian

Views: 53,617

Keywords: gracie terzian, beginner, lesson, free, chart, circle of fifths, circle of 5ths, circle of 4ths and 5ths, circle of fourths and fifths, circle of fourths, music theory, easy music theory, chord theory, melody, theory, beginner music theory, guitar, piano, ukulele, ukelele, music education, free lessons, 101, learn music, notes, harmony, major scales, how to learn your major scales, major scale patterns, easy major scales, easy trick

Id: -fErw8WPvw0

Length: 13min 54sec (834 seconds)

Published: Sun May 30 2021