This post is one of a 2-part series of free basic music theory lessons on my blog, musictheoryde-mystified.com. You can see the complete list here. Please feel welcome to make a comment or ask a question.
Scale Degrees
As we’ve seen in 10. How To Find The Notes Of A Scale, we can name the notes of a scale by using the interval pattern of its mode to find the right notes.
If we want to look at scales in a more general way, we can replace the actual note names by degree names; numbers representing the position of each note in the scale, such as 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc. The exception is the root note, which is either called the root note (RN for short) or tonic.
Interval Names As Scale Degrees
Further, we can distinguish notes in the major from the parallel minor by thinking of each degree as an interval above the root note and include the quality in the name.
For instance,
- the 3rd note of a major scale is called the major 3rd
- the 6th note of a minor scale is called the minor 6th
- the 4th note of both major and minor scales is called the perfect 4th
Interval names as scale degrees allow us to describe scale notes in relative terms, so we can look at an example in one key and apply what we notice to any key.
Degree Names Quick Tip
For major and natural minor scales,
- the 3rd, 6th and 7th are major or minor, as per the scale
- the 2nd is always major
- the 4th and 5th are always perfect
Note: we don’t use a quality for the 1st/octave.
The harmonic minor has a major 7th. The rest of the notes have the same degree names as the natural minor.
Why use degree names when we already have note names?
Degree names are a great analysis and learning tool.
As mentioned earlier, degree names make it easy to apply something we noticed in a particular key to any other key. This could be in the melody but it applies equally to chords.
Degree names are particularly useful for understanding chords: notes in a chord are also described as intervals above the root note.
Try These…
The first note in each exercise is the root note/tonic.
- Use the key signature to work out if the key is major or minor.
- Name the key.
- Name the following notes as scale degrees.
Don’t forget to include the interval quality in the degree name, as described above.
Example
Note: if you prefer text to music notation, the exercises are written as text here.
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Answers at the end of this post.
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NEXT LESSON: B14. Chords 1: Major/Minor Triads And Modal Chords
PART 2 CONTENTS: Basic Music Theory Course Contents
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Answers To Try These…
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Try These… (Text Version)
(text version of exercises)
- D major: D, E, F#, A
- B minor: B, E, F#, A
- Eb major: Eb, Bb, C
- C minor: C, Ab, Eb
To view the answers, click here.