The chromatic scale is the succession of 12 music notes, tones, or pitches, in chronological order, that make up the standard western music system. In this module you will be explore the distance between notes to help figure out how to work out scales.
Each of the chronological notes are distanced what we call a SEMI-TONE, or HALF STEP apart from one another. 5 of them containing accidentals, known as ‘SHARPS’ and ‘FLATS’ and are illustrated by a hashtag symbol '#' for sharp notes and an italic style lower case 'b' for flat notes, also known as ‘ENHARMONIC’ notes, and the other 7 notes are simply called ‘NATURAL’ notes.
To illustrate a chromatic scale, let’s will start off with the note of ‘A’ which is played by plucking the open A string on your ukulele.
On tab, played as quarter notes in a 4/4-time signature, it would look like this:
Each of the chronological notes are distanced what we call a SEMI-TONE, or HALF STEP apart from one another. 5 of them containing accidentals, known as ‘SHARPS’ and ‘FLATS’ and are illustrated by a hashtag symbol '#' for sharp notes and an italic style lower case 'b' for flat notes, also known as ‘ENHARMONIC’ notes, and the other 7 notes are simply called ‘NATURAL’ notes.
To illustrate a chromatic scale, let’s will start off with the note of ‘A’ which is played by plucking the open A string on your ukulele.
On tab, played as quarter notes in a 4/4-time signature, it would look like this:
On the ukulele fretboard, it would look like this with sharp notes:
Or like this with flat notes:
You can start the chromatic scale in any position, but note that there are no accidental notes in between B & C or E & F. We will return to this later to work out the formulas for major and minor scales.
Have a listen to what this chromatic scale starting on the open A string sounds like. There are 13 tones played so that the octave of A is included: