Music Theory 101: Sharps, Flats, and Scales

Hello everyone.. music is beautiful isn’t it?  Today I want to show you more about major scales, and about sharps and flats.  Lets begin.

I know that I’ve spoken and explained some things about Sharps, but I wanted to clarify what FLATS are.  Sharps are a half step higher, but Flats are a half step Lower..

Look at the graphs Below:

You see as you’re going up in tones,  you use the term Sharps, but when you’re moving back or down you use the term Flat.  Flats are usually used in Minor Scales, which we won’t get into at this moment.  Looking at the image above we can see how a C# and a Db are the same tone, but they have different names depending on the type of scale you are playing.

So now that we’ve cover flats and majors lets look at basic Major scales.

We can see that:

• C = 0 Sharps or flats

• D = 2 sharps

• E = 4 Sharps

• F = 1 Flat

• G = 1 Sharp

• A = 3 Sharps

• B = 5 Sharps

So if I were to ask you what scale has 2 sharps you can tell me that the D major Scale has 2 sharps… F# and C# .. how do we know this?  Well Here is the chat sheet I promised you: 

If I say the Scale of E has 4 Sharps, I know that they are going to be F#, C#, G#, and D# based on this rule of Sharps.  If you look at the scales and compare you’ll see that If a scale only has 2 sharps, those sharps will have to F# and D#.  This happens because of the Whole Whole Half Formula that I showed you guys a couple of weeks ago.  It will not contradict itself…

That is why if you look at the F Major Scale you see that it has 1 flat.  This is to follow the rule of sharps, because 1 Sharp would mean that the sharp would be F# and then we would be in the key of Flats, therefore we are asked to use a flat which is B.
I hope this helps you understand a bit more about scales.  I can guarantee that if you remember these things, WWHWWH, FCGDA, you will be able to play any major scale you want.

UNEAK