What Are Scales?

The music dictionary defines a Scale as:

"...a series of tones in a pattern
of whole steps and half steps..."

In Latin "Scala" means "Ladder".

A Scale is a set of notes used in a song. Because there are so many notes, a Scale narrows down the notes we use for our purpose.

In western music we have many different scales used for many different types of music. To understand this better we first have to understand the basic building blocks of the scale - Whole Steps and Half Steps.

Click "next" for a short tour of Whole Steps and Half Steps...