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Music theory: Major and minor scales

July 2021

A diatonic scale has seven notes per octave, and the half steps (h) are separated from each other by alternating groups of two and three whole steps (W): W W W h W W h W W W h W W h ... . The starting point of the pattern determines whether the scale is “major” or “minor”:1

Major scales are often considered “happy” and minor scales “sad”.

The name of a scale is determined by its first note, so the major scale that starts with C is “C major”. This gives us 24 distinct scales:

Note Major scale Minor scale
C
C♯/D♭
D
D♯/E♭
E
F
F♯/G♭
G
G♯/A♭
A
A♯/B♭
B

A piece of music primarily written using the notes of a particular diatonic scale is said to be in that scale's “key” – for example, in the key of C major.

Sharps vs. flats

Consider the D major scale. We could write it using either sharps or flats (or even a combination of both):

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
D E F♯ G A B C♯ D
D E G♭ G A B D♭ D

The first is preferred over the second because each of the note names appears exactly once. The second is harder to read because it contains both G♭ and G, and D♭ and D. All diatonic scales have this property: they can be written using all seven note names in sequence, with either sharps or flats (but not both) on a subset of the notes. This set of sharps or flats is called the scale's “key signature”.

Relative scales

Major and minor scales overlap:

|    major    |    major    |    major    |          
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6
 W W h W W W h W W h W W W h W W h W W W h W W h W W 
3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1
          |    minor    |    minor    |    minor    |

So we can pick up a minor scale starting with the sixth note of a major scale, and we can pick up a major scale starting with the third note a minor scale. Such scales are called “relative”. For example, A minor is the relative minor of C major, and C major is the relative major of A minor:

|   C major   |   C major   |   C major   |
C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C D E F G A
 W W h W W W h W W h W W W h W W h W W W h W W h W W 
C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C D E F G A B C D E F G A
          |   A minor   |   A minor   |   A minor   |

  1. Technically, this shows only the “natural” minor scale. There are also variations of this scale called “harmonic” and “melodic” minor scales.↩