The Major scale: music's essential building block

In order to understand how music is made, how to understand chords, how to sight-sing, how to tell what key you're in, how to read music on a staff... you need to understand a major scale.

The major scale is simply the do-re-mi scale that everyone already knows.

Watch this little video about the major scale:

 A couple of things to know about any major scale:

1. A major scale has 7 different notes. The 8th note of the scale, the octave, is the same as the first note, only higher.
   
   
2. Any scale has to have 7 different letter names, then the octave, which is the same as the starting note.
   
   Ex:
   A B C D E F G A, or
   C D E F G A  B C, or
   E F G A B C D E, etc.
   
   You can't say:
   A B Db D E F G or
   C D E F G A A# C.
   
   
3. Every major scale is made up of ALL whole steps, EXCEPT between notes 3&4 and 7&8, which are half steps.
   For an explanation of half steps versus whole steps, watch this video
   
   
4. Every major scale has
   a Tonic (Its starting note)
   a Major 2nd
   a Major 3rd
   a Perfect 4th
   a Perfect 5th
   a Major 6th
   a Major 7th
   an octave
   
   We will learn only the major scale in the beginning. My strategy is to learn as few things as possible in the beginning, one or two facts, then deduce other concepts from that original thing. That way you won't have to spend enormous amounts of time memorizing things that don't need to be memorized.
   
   More later...