Spelling the Scales of the Musical Keys
Introduction

Take Lesson One

You will learn a very fast and effective method to remember how to spell the scales for the major and minor keys. With relatively little effort, you can make the ability to quickly and easily spell the scales for all the major and minor keys an active part of your musical vocabulary for life. It is simple. All you need to do is memorize the key signatures. To do this, you will memorize a small arrangement of simple images. Once you know how the images are related, you can spell the scales. These images are very quick and easy to remember and have great sticking power in the mind. The amazing part of this method is not just how fast you can learn, but also the superior retention of the information. You will be able to remember what you learn for with very little practice.

This method turned out to be more effective at teaching scales than I could have previously imagined as being possible. I learned the basic visual memory techniques   used in this course from the remarkable book pictured to the right. This book does not have any musical applications in it. Instead, it teaches a set of general memory techniques that the reader can then apply to any subject. This scales course is an example of the kind of applications that are possible with the techniques that are taught. The surprisingly powerful effectiveness of the methods taught in this very useful "how to" book made creating a method to teach the scales a real pleasure. If you are interested in enhancing your own ability to learn or to empower curriculum design, this book is an excellent resource.

Knowing how to spell the scales of the musical keys allows you to work with the tonal framework that a musical key provides. Knowing the musical keys is a necessary part of a solid foundation for the study of music. You will be taught how to spell the scales for the major and minor keys from memory. It will take less time and work than you may think. This complementary online course assumes that you have a working knowledge of basic concepts such as note, pitch, scale, key, interval, chord and their relationships to one another. 

To optimize your success with this method, it is very important to master each lesson before you proceed. Each lesson builds on the previous lessons, so make sure you learn each lesson well. We will start with a series of seven images. Each object that is pictured will physically come out of the previous object in an unusual way. This will visually link the images and allow you to remember their correct order. As you are exposed to the images, it is very important that you focus on visualizing the images in your mind as well as seeing them on the screen. Don’t just think of the names of the images in your mind; see the images in your mind every time you practice.

This method I created teaches you how to spell the major scales. The ability to spell the minor scales is easily realized by knowing how to use the principle of relative major and minor keys. For example, if you know how to spell the scale of C Major, you will also be able to spell its relative minor, which is A minor. In order to determine a relative major or minor key, you must be able to know what note is a minor third is above and below any given note. This is taught in the interval portion of the The Music Theory Advantage^TM. You may begin this scales course immediately to learn how to spell the scales for the major keys. After learning the major scales, take the online course if you do not know how to find minor thirds above or below any note. Then return to this course to learn how to apply it to the spelling of natural minor scales.

Take Lesson One