I’m going to use Ableton Live for all visual examples, but you can use any DAW you want to. It doesn’t make a difference.

The C major scale

Today we are only going to cover the C major scale.

The C major scale is one of the most common scales, especially in Western music. It’s made up of seven notes. C, D, E, F, G, A, B.

The C major scale on the piano roll

Triad chords in the C major scale

Triad chords in the C major scale (click to zoom).

A triad chord is a set of three notes, where the interval between each note is a third. From lowest to highest the notes in a triad are called the root, the third and the fifth.

The third’s interval can either be:

Minor third (three semitones above the root)

(three semitones above the root) Major third (four semitones above the root)

A minor chord uses the minor third, while a major chord uses the major third above the root.

The fifth’s interval can either be:

Diminished fifth (six semitones above the root)

(six semitones above the root) Perfect fifth (seven semitones above the root)

(seven semitones above the root) Augmented fifth (eight semitones above the root)

Perfect fifths are the most commonly used though, like in the examples I’ve shown you.

The C major chord is built up by the root, a major third and a perfect fifth, while the D minor chord is built up by the root, a minor third and a perfect fifth.

The picture below shows an E minor chord.

A popular chord progression in major scales is what’s called the I-V-vi-IV (or 1–5–6–4) progression, where the chords in a C major scale would be:

C major, G major, A minor & F major.

Try it yourself. Pull up a piano in your DAW and add those chords. I’m sure you’ll recognise it.

The major scale pattern

The major scale follows a pattern of steps, which is:

Whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half.

C, (whole step to) D, (whole) E, (half) F, (whole) G, (whole) A, (whole) B, (half back to) C.

Look at the image below. Black is a whole step and red is a half step.

C major scale

Knowing this you could play any major scale. Try starting on D and let the steps above guide you.

Making things interesting

Inversions

Instead of playing all the chords in it’s original position you could invert your chords.

Here’s a C major chord where I have dropped the E & G an octave down from it’s original position. It’s what’s called a “first inversion”.

First inversion of the C major chord

You could also just drop the G and create the “second inversion”. Like this.

Second inversion of the C major chord

Seventh chords

Remember how basic triad chords are made up of the root, the third and the fifth? If you add the 7th interval to that, you get a 7th chord.

C (root), E (third), G (fifth) and B (seventh).

Here’s what a basic C major 7th chord looks like.

C major 7th chord

There are more variations of 7th chords but I just wanted to give you an easy example of what a 7th chord can look like.

You can easily make any simple triad (1–3–5) chord into a 7th chord. Just add the 7th interval on top of the triad. In the image below the blue note on top is the seventh.

D minor 7th chord

Make something on your own based on these chords

Go ahead and make something on your own based on the chords and scale I have just showed you. Maybe look up some more inversions or 9th chords. The best way to learn is by doing.

See you in the next one!