ChordWizard® Music Theory 3.0 is the downloadable version of the How Music Works tutorials. It is installed on your computer for easy reference, and includes all the sounds, text searching, bookmarking, and many printing options.

4) Scales and Melody

The Major scale is overwhelmingly dominant in western music, and everything in these tutorials so far has been based on it.

However, there are many other scale types which also play a significant role in western music, and several others besides that originate from the music of other cultures. Some of these are shown below.

Scale types other than the Major scale lend a completely different flavour to a melody, because of the different set of notes and intervals they provide.

While music can be written directly in one of these scales, they are also often used as the framework for improvisation, the playing of a spontaneous melody line over a backing chord progression.

Most ChordWizard products contain a collection of standard scale types, including those in this topic, and provide powerful tools for working with scales of all types.

These include tools for exploring how scales are played on your instrument, conducting interactive scale practice sessions, and printing scale reports.