Scale Notes Chart: Major and Minor Scales. Know All the Notes, in All Possible Keys, their Intervals, and the Chord to Use in Each Degree.
Major Scale Notes Chart
The chart below shows the notes of the Major scale in all possible keys. This scheme is very useful when consulting the notes that make up a specific Major key. This way we will know which chord to use for each tonality; both flats or sharps, as minor or major chords, and their location within the scale.
This graph makes our work much easier when composing, transporting the chords of a song to a different key, and Extracting the Chords of a Musical Theme, once the theme key is known.
Note: to find out the chords of a piece of music, or to play over the playback of a song, we must have the guitar tuned in concert pitch, or standard pitch. This pitch is what any electronic tuner would pick up.
Major Scale
At the bottom of the chart above, we see what type of chord corresponds to each place on the scale. The most used are the primary chords (1st – 4th – 5th), along with the sixth or relative minor.
Then we would have the secondary chords in purple, and finally in the 7th position we have a diminished chord (orange box), which would be the least used normally. This last chord would be more normal to find in Major, instead of diminished, and a semitone lower. If we are not able to find a chord that we are missing to release a song, most likely that chord is the flat Major 7th.
For example: in the key of B Major, instead of using an A# as the 7th, we would use an A, and it would be played in Major instead of diminished. But by altering that note it would obviously no longer be the Major scale. It would be a Major MODE, specifically the Mixolydian Mode, one of the most used Modes.
The Mixolydian Mode would be as if we were playing the C Major scale, but starting on G (G as the tonic instead of the 5th), so we keep the same structure G – A – B – C – D – E – F – G. Greek Modes.
Minor Scale Notes Chart
We move on to the natural minor scale chart, with the same structure as the previous scale. But starting the intervals from the 6th note of the Major or Relative minor scale.
In reality this scale would be another Mode (Aeolian Mode). Since it is the same structure in the intervals, but starting the scale in a different interval.
Minor Scale Key Chart
The second note of the natural minor scale (orange box) is more normally found in Major, rather than diminished, and a semitone lower.
For example: in the key of G minor instead of taking an A as the 2nd, it would take a Lab and it would be played in Major instead of diminished. But by altering that interval it would become a minor MODE, specifically the Phrygian Mode. Mode also widely used like the Mixolydian Mode. The tone that would have all its notes intact in Phrygian Mode would be E (5th of A), E – F – G – A – B – C – D – E. Greek Modes.
What I want to explain to you with all this mess of scales is that all the scales are the same, with the same structure, and the same notes. It all depends on what note we take as the Tonic to be playing in Major, minor and in any kind of Greek Mode.