Ok I get the general idea of a Major Scale, but I need to understand something.

There's a formula for WWHWWWH

So in G it would be GABCDEF#G

Ok guys what I want to know is the REASONING behind that formula. Why is it that its WWHWWWH, why is there half steps why not whole steps all the way.

jangan persoal main je

saya curious hahaha

it opens up a whole complexity of music theory, to answer your question there is something as a whole tone scale. i.e. whole step up.

in simple terms, each scale is a pattern of notes, major is just one pattern out of many, its also one of the most common patterns in western music, since you relearning western music....

other musics like to use different scales, indian scales are a bit diff.

lets avoid going into tonics, you might get a headache after that

ahahahaha made my day la! wtf statement!

3kk is right, the origin of the scales ur intoduced to is from composers of western music. It's implied that when u say major scale, it would be the westerners major scale that is applied as international major standard, if you were to go to china in probably 18th century and ask them to play gu zheng at major scale they would probably play 'their' major scale which is totally diff than the westerners major scale. that applied to indian or japanese country for that matter, each have their own 'major' scale back then arguably can be even said for right now too.

That's octive scale which is very common in western music. that's like why you want to raise a semitone on the 7th notes in minor scale, is their music format

for tradition chinese music, there is only 5 tone, do re mi so la, there is no semitone in chinese tradition music, like the famous folk song jasmine flower, the song only made up from 5 tones only

in modern music, actually there is whole tone scale, where that is rarely in use, the scale form look like C, D, E, F#, G#, A#, C

u want technical explanation?

give u a simple one only.

a note hv specific frequency. when u double the frequency it's still the same note.

but some frequency when combine with certain frequencies, it will sounds nice. not just any freq, but particular freqs only. this freq increment refers to ur WWHWWWH steps.

to completely explain gonna be long. u know la, physics stuff.

This post has been edited by ciwi1166: Apr 16 2015, 05:19 PM

Let me try to explain this in simple words.
*breathes in*
Basically a scale will have its own sound, in this case, a major scale will sound like ‘do re mi fa so la ti do’
Hence, in order to sound like that, you follow the formula you mentioned. This way, no matter what root key you start in, if you follow that formula you would get a ‘do re mi fa so la ti do’ sounding scale.
So if you play this on the piano,
C D E F G A B C
It will sound like do re mi fa so la ti do. Same goes if you play
GABCDEF#G
It too will sound similar just that at a different pitch.
I hope that helps.