A Complete Rundown of the Major Scale Formula

Updated 2023
Estimated time to read: 12 minutes

Some people roll their eyes at the mention of theory and scales, but you don’t have to be one of them. In this post I’m going to share some practical knowledge with you about something that will be foundational in your rhythm and lead guitar playing for years to come, major scales and the formula (pattern) to build them.

Sections:

• An Introduction to Major Scales

• The Major Scale Formula Tells You What Notes to Play

• Half Steps (Semitones)

• Whole Steps (Tones)

• Building a Major Scale Using the Major Scale Formula

• Find the Notes of Any Major Scale

• Review of Whole Steps and Half Steps

• Major Scale Example: B Major Scale

• Major Scale Example: F Major Scale

• Your Turn: Practice Building Major Scales

• Should You Use Sharps or Flats in a Major Scale?

• Answers

• Wrapping it up

An Introduction to Major Scales

Major scales are the foundation of almost all songs written in major keys. Because of this, it’s very important to understand what major scales are, how to determine the notes in any given major scale, and then be able to translate that onto your instrument. In this post, we’ll be covering how this works for guitar.

Once you grasp the concept of major scales it makes learning them so much easier. Plus, when the worship leader changes the key of a song on the fly, you’ll be able to figure out the notes in the new key on the spot!

This is why I love music. The fundamentals of music are supported by simple formulas, and once you learn those, you can use your creativity to combine them with other aspects of music.

Let’s be honest, most worship songs are written in major keys. There’s a reason for this. When people come together to praise Jesus, a dreary and somber song isn’t going to get those endorphins flowing.

Now I’m not saying that songs written in minor keys aren’t suitable for worship, because they have their place depending on the style and message, but most people (especially church leaders) want your experience to be a positive one. So because of all this and more, worship songs are typically in major keys/scales.

You’ve probably heard the line “major is happy and minor is sad.” To some degree this is true, and especially to the untrained ear, major chords, scales and keys are generally more uplifting.

The Major Scale Formula Tells You What Notes to Play

So what notes make up a major scale? This is where the simple formula comes into play (pun intended). The first thing you need to know about the major scale formula is that it’s simply a pattern. There isn’t any math involved other than counting by 1’s or 2’s. It’s called a formula because by using this pattern, it helps you get the correct answer easily. By following the steps outlined below, you’ll be able to identify notes in a major scale with relative ease. As you develop these skills it will only become easier.

Major Scale Formula: Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Whole, Half.

An easy way to remember this one is: WWHWWWH

Wait a second. What does “whole” and “half” mean? Good question. If you aren’t familiar with intervals, steps, or tone/semitone then this next part will be new to you. If you already understand what “whole” and “half” mean but aren’t quite sure how to use them to make a major scale, feel free to skim ahead - but a review is always helpful.

Let’s start with half steps.

Half Steps (Semitones)

Half Step (Semitone): A half step is the distance between 2 consecutive pitches on a 12-tone scale. On a guitar or bass, a half step is the difference of moving up 1 fret or down 1 fret. On a keyboard, a half step is the difference of moving up 1 key or down 1 key.

The Chromatic Scale includes all of the pitches in the Western musical system (not including quarter tones and such). Each pair of consecutive pitches is a half step. The Chromatic Scale is made up of all half steps and is listed in the following order:

A A#/Bb B C C#/Db D D#/Eb E F F#/Gb G G#/Ab A

Hint: “#” means “sharp” and it means the note before it is rasied a half step. “b” means “flat” and it means the note before it is lowered a half step.

So the distance between A and A# (read “A sharp”), for instance, is a half step. Gb (read “G flat”) to G is also a half step. C to B is a half step. See the pattern?

Notice that there are only 2 pairs of pitches in the Chromatic Scale that are immediately next to each other without a sharp/flat pitch between them, those being B to C, and E to F. On the piano, these consecutive pitches do not have black keys between them and so the intervals between these natural pitches are ALWAYS half steps. On the other hand, if we go from C to D we combine 2 half steps (C to C#, and C# to D) to make a whole step.

Whole Steps (Tones)

Whole Step (Tone): A whole step is simply 2 half steps, or the distance between two pitches with only (and always) 1 pitch in the middle. On a guitar or bass, a whole step is the difference of moving up 2 frets or down 2 frets. On a keyboard, a whole step is the difference of moving up 2 keys or down 2 keys (including the black keys).

When we only use the interval of a whole step and exclude all half steps from our pattern we end up with what is called a Whole Tone Scale. Don’t worry about memorizing this scale pattern, but notice how the pitch selection changes when we use whole steps instead of half steps as shown here:

A B C# D# E#/F G A

You’ll notice I used E# here. This is on purpose. When we go up a whole step from D#, first we go to E, then to go to E#. We can easily call that same note F (which is an enharmonic - the same sounding pitch), but I want to show you that sometimes notes can be read as something other than what you expect. We’ll get to correctly naming notes shortly.

Building a Major Scale Using the Major Scale Formula

The major scale is made up of whole steps and half steps in the following order:

Whole, Whole, Half, Whole, Whole, Whole, Half

We can abbreviate this by using W for whole steps and H for half steps:

W W H W W W H

This is the Major Scale Formula.

If you’ll be transposing music or ever need to know the notes of a major scale you haven’t memorized yet, you should memorize this formula.

Knowing this formula will come in handy when the worship leader says, “We’re going to switch this song to the key of Eb.” You think to yourself, “Ummmmmmm … I haven’t practiced that one ... what was the formula again?”

Major Scale Formula: W W H W W W H.

Memorize it!

Find the Notes of Any Major Scale

Let’s go through each step of finding the notes in a major scale for practice.

Whatever the starting pitch, or tonic, of the major scale is, that’s what the starting pitch for our formula is going to be.

And that’s the ONLY note you need to know!

See how I bolded and underlined that? This is super important. You only need to know the major scale formula and the starting note. That’s it!

C Major scale starting on C

So if we want to find the pitches in the C Major Scale, we’ll start on C.

C is our starting pitch,

so we go up a Whole step to D,

go up a Whole step to E,

go up a Half step to F,

go up a Whole step to G,

go up a Whole step to A,

go up a Whole step to B,

and finally go up a Half step to C.

The notes in the C Major Scale are: C D E F G A B C. This is what it looks like on a guitar.

We’ve just figured out the notes for the C Major Scale. Do you see how the formula does all the work for you?

Review of Whole Steps and Half Steps

Again, wherever there is a whole step (W), there is exactly 1 pitch between that starting pitch (C) and the “end” pitch for that whole step (D). Another way to say this is that you count up 2 pitches on the Chromatic Scale from the starting pitch, C to C#/Db to D.

Where there’s a half step (H), there aren’t any pitches between it and the next one, as a half step is the smallest interval using 2 different and consecutive pitches.

If we follow this pattern and use the chromatic scale as our guide, we can figure out any major scale quickly.

Major Scale Example: B Major Scale

For example, let’s start a major scale on B.

The Major Scale Formula is: W W H W W W H

For reference, here are the available pitches of the Chromatic Scale:

A A#/Bb B C C#/Db D D#/Eb E F F#/Gb G G#/Ab

B is our starting pitch,

so we go up a Whole step to C#,

go up a Whole step to D#,

go up a Half step to E,

go up a Whole step to F#,

go up a Whole step to G#,

go up a Whole step to A#,

and finally go up a Half step to B.

The notes in the B Major Scale are: B, C#, D#, E, F#, G#, A#, B.

Major Scale Example: F major scale

Let’s start a major scale with F.

The Major Scale Formula is: W W H W W W H

If we follow the Major Scale Formula, we end up with the pitches in the F Major Scale which are:

F, G, A, Bb, C, D, E, F

Your Turn: Practice Building Major Scales

Now you give it a shot. Let’s try the A Major Scale.

The Major Scale Formula is: W W H W W W H

If you follow the Major Scale Formula, what pitches do you end up with in the A Major Scale? Write them down and check your work at the end of this post.

Go ahead and try one more major scale, D Major.

The Major Scale Formula is: W W H W W W H

If you follow the Major Scale Formula, what pitches do you end up with in the D Major Scale? Write them down to see if you understand the application of the Major Scale Formula. Check your answers at the end of the post.

Should You Use Sharps or Flats in a Major Scale?

You probably noticed that for some major scales I chose the sharp notes from the chromatic scale and for other major scales I chose the flat notes, but I never mixed them.

This is an important aspect of music theory, as well as making sure you are using the correct terminology.

It’s possible to mix sharps and flats because F# is the technically same pitch as Gb, for instance. But the point is to communicate in the simplest way, and to do that, we don’t want to mix sharps and flats in the same major scale.

When a musician is playing a song in the Key of B Major, they should use the B Major Scale. The B Major Scale (as you’ve seen above) contains the following pitches:

B, C#, D#, E, F#, G#, A#, B.

You could theoretically write the pitches like this instead: B, C#, Eb, E, Gb, G#, Bb, B.

Are you more confused or less confused with these new notes?

I know I am way more confused!

Another way to think about this is to have one of each note name in the scale.

So for the correct version of B Major, there is one B note (B), one C note (C#), one D note (D#), one E note (E), one F note (F#), one G note (G#), one A note (A#), and then the repeat of the starting note, B.

The difference and confusion comes into play when you get to the alternate (wrong) version of B Major where there is one B, one C (C#), no D, two Es (both Eb and E), no F, two Gs (Gb and G#), no A, and two Bs (three in total including the starting note).

Things can get confusing really quickly when you don’t follow simple music rules, like labeling the notes in the major scale formula incorrectly.

I hope this clears up some confusion when it comes to picking out which notes to use for chords and scales.

Answers

A Major Scale: A, B, C#, D, E, F#, G#, A

D Major Scale: D, E, F#, G, A, B, C#, D

Wrapping it up

In conclusion, you’ve learned what a half step is and what a whole step is. You’ve learned to apply that knowledge combined with the Major Scale Formula to create a major scale starting on any pitch. And you’ve learned why and when to use sharps or flats. These are all great things to understand and be able to have in your toolbelt when it comes to transposing, soloing, knowing what notes are in which scales and keys, as well as building chords.

Leave a comment below - what’s your favorite major scale?