Apologies if this is basic. After trying to grasp(off and on) music techniques and application for the last couple of years, I am still struggling to see the significance of scales in music.
Learning an playing the various scales on both guitar and piano is quite time consuming and tbh I am struggling to see their significance to making music.
I am sure that this lack of understanding is down to my personal stupidity because the consensus wisdom seems to be that scales are v.important. And many books have been written about them.
I'd be really grateful if someone could give a breakdown of why scales are important and relevant to music, that a 12 year old could understand(which is probably my mental age).
Comments
if you are playing a tune from tab, for instance, you may have no clue what the complete set of notes is that makes up the whole tune, you may also think that the tune is made up of a seemingly random set of notes. But the notes in a tune will actually be l8mited to a small set of notes, that are defined by the corresponding scale.
Chords are also made up according to a set of rules which relate the notes in the chords to a specific scale.
Learning and practicing scales is also good exercise for your fingers and brain.
Almost all songs are built from scales. Chords are made by using some of the notes in a scale. The chords you can play in a particular key are the chords which contain notes from the scale. The notes you can play in a melody which sound "in key" are the notes from the scale.
That is a slight oversimplification, but not much.
Of course, you could make a song sound good purely by ear and trial and error, but eventually when you do make it sound good, you will most likely find that all the notes you've written happen to fall into a particular scale.
Therefore, if you knew about that scale to start with, it might have made things a whole lot easier for you.
Also melodies and chords are built from these as already mentioned above.
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https://www.pluginboutique.com/product/3-Studio-Tools/72-Utility/3933-Scaler
You can lock your midi keyboard to the white keys, and then play chords and scales in any key. (Octave 1 = one finger chords, Octave 2 = scale notes).
I find it helps to hear the interactions between the various chords & scales, when trying to understand the different musical colours that available to us.
It works with VST instruments too.
Apologies btw for the unintentionally offensive term in the original question title.
e.g. Key of C Maj chords = C Dm Em F G Am Bdim & the C Maj scale = c d e f g a b c
If nothing else then understanding scales and how chords are built off them is essential in communicating with other musicians.
They also give useful shapes for your fingers and ears to develop.
Although not everything you play will fit neatly under a single scale ( unless you stick to nursery rhymes and the Methodist Hymn book) you can still develop an understanding and language for when things are within or outside of those scales.
To get away without this you would need to be an exceptional talent. When Steve Lukather says he doesn't understand music theory he doesn't mean he doesn't understand music theory what he means is he doesn't understand it like a good brain surgeon doesn't understand extra tricky brain surgery. It's the basic vocabulary of western music.
Just like the alphabet you can create words and sentences..make conversation ....it's exactly the same with music..
I think they are important but not the be all and end all ...I wouldn't mind betting that some of our favourite guitarists that we hear today don't know much more than the blues scale but know exactly how to make music from it
you can still carry on learning songs by tab etc but start building up your ear/knowledge of the fretboard
That's not to say that you can't throw caution to the wind and throw any old colours (notes) together: there is always a time and a place for that as well.