Major Scales: Who Needs 'Em?

Are major scales really needed for songwriting? Or are they useless theory that gets in the way?

The answer is Yes... and No.

Can a mother raise a child without being able to read? Yes, they did for thousands of years.

Would things have been easier with the internet? Yes, but there's a lot of garbage available there too.

So Literacy is a great tool, but also potentially dangerous. Without wisdom and caution, you can follow dangerous advice online.

It's the same with major & minor scales.

If your melodies are poorly written and they sound like scales... they suck. But is that the scales' fault?

The answer is not to avoid scales. Learn what they are for.

WHY SCALES?

Today's Major scales don't exist to give musicians something to play. They were created for tuning instruments.

We needed a tuning system so instruments could play together in all 12 major & minor keys.

Yes, the Greeks had their MODES(around 400 BC), and the Early Christian Church developed them more extensively. But multiple instruments couldn't join in together.

To make matters worse, different instruments, made by different people in different geographical locations, all had different notes available, with different tunings... so everybody was different.

Try to get that in tune.

That is until around the 1500's, when organs and harpsichords began to have intervals known as "1/2 steps," built consistently into their keyboard design. Major scales soon followed.

So you see, even before notes got grouped together and labeled as Drones, Modes or Scales, people sang and played instruments.

Historians believe that ancient Composers tried to use a particular mode/scale for the emotional effect they wanted. They believed certain scales had various effects on the listener's emotions.

DO SCALES HAVE MYSTICAL POWER?

Crazy thought, huh? Check this out:

• Greek theorist, Pythagoras (ca. 500 BC), taught that music was inseparable from number. And that these vibrations were the key to the entire spiritual and physical universe.

  Since the same mathematical laws governing music operate throughout the cosmos, the human soul was thought to be kept in harmony by numerical relationships. Music, then, could penetrate the soul.

• Aristotle (384-322 BC), said that music imitates the passions of the soul, such as gentleness, anger, courage, AND THEIR OPPOSITES.

  Music, that imitates a certain passion, also aroused that same passion in the listener. So...the wrong kind of music can make you the wrong kind of person.

• In Plato's REPUBLIC (380 BC), he recommends two modes(scales) - DORIAN and PHRYGIAN - because they encourage temperance and courage. The others, he believed, did the opposite.

  He believed that gymnastics disciplined the body and music did same for the mind. But too much athletics made a man uncivilized, violent and ignorant. While too much music made him effeminate or neurotic.

(Notes from Concise History of Western Music, Third Edition.
I highly recommend this as an easy-to-read, music history reference book. Cool stuff and will come in handy if you ever need to write something specialized for a particular period.)

These same teachers & philosophers were also very cautious about drama being accompanied by music.

The original Greek dramas could only use music BETWEEN acts, not DURING.

This was considered too powerful & emotionally stirring. Combining music with acting could of had disastrous results. (What would they think today?)

So at "half-time" or intermission, or breaks between scenes, a musician would play a tune.

The predecessors to major scales were probably being composed on-the-spot by some desperate musician, noodling away to subdue the crowd.

I doubt they just played scales up & down like we practice today. But the structure was already well in place.

Concepts such as NOTE, SCALE, INTERVAL and MODE were born.

Eventually, these ODEs or songs began to be "acted out" as plays and the Greek festivals were born. They gave us the model for music videos... MTV thousands of years before today.

SCALES ARE MOODS, or MODES

A major scale, Pentatonic scale, Dorian scale, Diminished scale, whichever you name, does in fact have a mood. It creates an atmosphere for your story, poem, lyric or melody.

I have recorded 3 different scale types for you to listen to. I will play the scale from low to high so you hear the pattern, and then improvise "in the mood" of that scale.

The C Major Scale: Light, Warm, Open

The C Dorian Scale: Heavier, Cool, Sad

The C Phrygian Scale: Tense, Serious, Exotic

You can hear that just playing a major scale pattern, or any other scale pattern, is not enough to create music.

But the scales do have a unique personality or character of their own.

Now you understand some history and purpose of the scales. Maybe you can see them better as colors on your artistic palette, instead of theoretical exercises.

SO WHAT'S THE BOTTOM LINE?

Do you really need to know your scales for songwriting?

No, you don't.

And many great songs have been written by artists that don't know a Bb from a Z.

But they still use 1/2 step and whole step INTERVALS, there is still a KEY, and the melody is based on a PATTERN of sounds discovered thousands of years ago... whether they know it or not.

So if it has a definite pitch, goes higher or lower, is singable and involves music...

More on Scales and Music Intervals

More on the Principles of Music Theory

Rhythm Without the Blues

Great Songwriting Tips for Pros and Beginners

Lyric Writing Library

Finding Your Own Songwriting Vibe

Return from Major Scales to Home