It is important to understand that everything you learn in music builds off of what you learned before. Sometimes things don't need a specific order, but most things do. The further you get out of order, the harder a concept will be.
For this lesson, we are going to use the root and key of C. Roots and keys will be described in much more detail in later lessons. For now, just understand that the key of C is the easiest for us to work with.
The chromatic scale uses every note between the root note (in this case, C) and it's octave (or the next time that note comes up in the scale). So if we start at C, we work this way:
| C | C# | D | D# | E | F | F# | G | G# | A | A# | B | C |
This pattern is constant regardless of what root note you start with. As we move from one note to another, each move is down by a half step. The half step is the shortest distance between two notes*. As an additional example, here is the chromatic scale for the Key of E (wheel use it later on the guitar):
| E | F | F# | G | G# | A | A# | B | C | C# | D | D# | E |
As you can see, we are also only using sharps (#) as we go up the scale. It is also acceptable to use flats (b) instead of sharps. However, we typically use sharps when we ascend (go up) the scale and flats when we descend (go back down). Here is the same scale (in C) going down with flats:
| C | B | Bb | A | Ab | G | Gb | F | E | Eb | D | Db | C |
As you may notice, where there was a C# going up, we now have a Db. That's because the sharp (#) makes the indicated note a half step higher and the flat (b) makes it a half step lower. Since D comes after C, a Db is the same as a C#.
There is another thing to take note of with this scale. Notice how the scale moves between E and F and also B and C. Normally, on the scale, if move from one note to another, you would use a sharp (going up) or a flat (coming down) to go that half step between. Well, there is not half step between E and F or B and C.
So, here is what you need to remember about this lesson:
- Chromatic scales move one half step at a time from root to root (an octave).
- When we move up, we sharpen the pitch so we use sharps (#).
- When we move down, we flatten the pitch so we uses flats (b).
- A Bb and an A# are the same pitch (as are other flat/sharp neighbors).
The practical side
Now we need to take this knowledge to the fretboard. For ukuleles, we will use the C chromatic scale, for guitars we will use the E chromatic scale.
Notice as you work your way up and down the fretboard chromatically, you are also only moving one fret at a time. This is because on fretted instruments (this includes the guitar) each fret represents one half step.
Now lets look at switching to a different strings instead of staying on one.
This is a good illustration of how tuning your ukulele or guitar to itself works. As you can see, the notes blend themselves into the next string.
Finally, here are both fretboards laid out up to the twelfth fret with all of the notes. Try to start at one note and work your way up and down the fretboard doing a full chromatic scale.
Now that you have a good understanding of the chromatic scale, we will move on to the next part of music which is tones and semitones. We'll use this scale to do so, so make sure you know how it works before moving on.
~DB
* When I talk about music, I talk about western music (as opposed to Eastern or African or Tribal music). In this case, there are some instances in other forms of music that use steps that we would call quarter or even smaller. But for our purposes, we assume that a half step is the smallest.
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