Okuzeka
Music vocabulary · Music Theory and Harmony

Scale

Meaning in music, with examples

/skeɪl/nounCore term

In music, scale means: A set of notes played in order of pitch, going up or down, that follows a fixed pattern of steps. Scales are the building blocks of melodies and chords.

In Turkish: gam, dizi

How it is used

Used in every theory class and practice routine. Students practise scales daily; you play a scale up and down, over one or two octaves. Common types are the major scale, the minor scale, the chromatic scale and the pentatonic scale.

Example sentences

  1. Warm up with the C major scale before you start the piece.

  2. Most blues solos are built on the minor pentatonic scale.

Common collocations

  • practise scales
  • major scale
  • minor scale
  • play a scale up and down
  • chromatic scale
  • keyThe group of notes and chords that a piece is mainly built on, centred on one home note. A song in the key of G major keeps returning to G as its point of rest.
  • intervalThe distance in pitch between two notes, named by counting letter names and checking the number of semitones, such as a major third or a perfect fifth.
  • majorDescribing a scale, key, chord or interval built with a major third. Music in a major key is often described as bright or happy.
  • minorDescribing a scale, key, chord or interval built with a minor third. Music in a minor key is often described as dark, serious or sad.
  • octaveThe interval between one note and the next note with the same name, higher or lower. The higher note vibrates exactly twice as fast as the lower one.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Music Theory and Harmony

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