Scale explorer

What the explorer shows

A scale is a pattern of steps, not a list of notes to memorise. Every major scale climbs tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone; start that pattern on a different note and it drags in whichever sharps or flats it needs to keep its shape. Change the starting note with the scale type fixed and watch which black keys the pattern forces you onto.

The notes are spelled the way a musician writes them, with each letter used once in a seven-note scale — so E♭ major contains A♭, never G♯, and F♯ major contains E♯ rather than F. The staff follows that spelling; the keyboard shows where it lands.

On guitar and bass

Switch the explorer to Guitar or Bass and the same scale — same notes, same spelling — is marked on the first twelve frets of the neck and played in that instrument's sound. Every fret that plays a note of the scale is marked, so it shows where the notes are rather than one fingering; the fretboard explorer has the whole neck, other tunings and practice. On bass the scale sounds two octaves lower, where a bass plays it.

The scales it covers

Major, Natural minor, Harmonic minor, Melodic minor, Major pentatonic, Minor pentatonic, Dorian, Mixolydian, Lydian, Phrygian.

Try this: choose C, then switch between Major and Natural minor. Exactly three keys move — the third, sixth and seventh. Then switch to harmonic minor and one of them moves back. That is the whole story of the three minor scales in three clicks.

Looking one scale up

For the full picture of a single scale — its degrees and their names, its key signature, its relative and parallel keys — each major and minor scale has its own page in the scale reference, with this explorer on it set to that scale.