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What Are Scales and Chords?

Hi friend! Do you gather information daily? Do you learn new concepts? If yes, here it is for you an existing and simple concept from music about scales and chords. Sounds familiar for the music learners and sounds different for others. So, what’s actually scales and chords? They are just different musical notes where one exists based on the support of the other.

In music theory, the chord-scale system is the most widely used method for teaching almost in many colleges. Yes, indeed! In simple words, I can say as the chord-scale system is a method of matching, from a list of possible chords, a list of possible scales. The system has been widely used since the 1970s and is now accepted in the jazz world more.

Who Am I?

A scale is any set of musical notes ordered by pitch or fundamental frequency. A scale ordered by increasing pitch is an ascending scale, and a scale ordered by decreasing pitch is a descending scale. Some scales contain different pitches when ascending than when descending.

Do You Know My Companion?

A chord is any harmonic set of pitches consisting of multiple notes (pitches) that are heard as if sounding simultaneous. For many practical and theoretical purposes, the notes of the chord are sounded one after the other, rather than simultaneously, or sequences of chord notes may also be considered as chords.

Me, My Partner and My Modes

What’s the difference you found from these two? If you regularize the pitches sequentially and play them one at a time, that is scale. If you put together and play them simultaneously, then that is chords. The scales commonly used. It consists of the seven modes of the diatonic scale, the seven modes of the melodic minor scale, the diminished scales, the whole-tone scale, and pentatonic and bebop scales. Scales and chords are interrelated. There are two sides of the same coin.
Chord-Scale System How chords and scales are related
A scale is a horizontal representation of a particular collection of notes and is built up in 2nds;

A chord is a vertical representation of that same collection of notes and is built in 3rds.

Pickup You From Me

Do you know to make chords from scales? To make a chord, you start on the first note of a scale and then you skip every alternating note. To get more notes for your chord, just keep adding thirds on top.


You see in major scales, you have four semitones (in piano keys) between their first and third degrees. This interval is called a major third, and it appears in all major chords. In C, there’s a major third between C and E.


Also when you come to minor scales, you have three semitones (piano keys) between their first and third degrees. This interval is called a minor third, and it appears in all minor chords. In C, there is a minor third between C and E-flat. Looks similar right?! But there is a small difference.

Ourselves in Piano and Guitar

In general, the chords consisting of fewer notes to make harmony, while the scales are to make the melody.


In piano, Major and minor chords are called triads. They are three-note chords consisting of the root, the third and the fifth of the scale. In the case of a minor triad, a flat third is played.
In guitar, a chord scale is disclosed when you build a chord on each degree of a scale. If you take an example, the major scale has 7 degrees, and we can, therefore, build 7 chords from that scale, one chord sow on each degree. This gives us a chord system compatible with the parent scale. The specific notes to form a specific chord are the same for piano and guitar, the position of how you play them differs.

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What Are Scales and Chords? What Are Scales and Chords? Reviewed by Goldsmth on November 01, 2019 Rating: 5

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