There are many, many forms of the blues, from rhythm-and-blues to all kinds of jazz tunes to hundreds, if not thousands of popular songs, and even some kinds of gospel music. In this podcast I discuss the basis of the scale that makes up the tones used in the blues:

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For a course in jazz and blues runs based on the blues scale, please click on “Jazz & Blues Runs”

Some cousins don’t get along with each other, but others are “kissing cousins”. And that’s exactly what the C major scale and the A minor scale are - kissing cousins.

What makes them like that? They are related because they share the very same notes. If you play the C scale from A to A, what you have is the A natural minor scale. (There are other varieties of minor scales, such as harmonic and melodic, but that’s not our subject here.)

Please watch this 14-minute video and learn which scales are related to each other and why:

For an exhaustive course on scales, come on over to All About Scales & How To Use Them!

This podcast is part one of a two-part series on the blues scale — what it is, how it is used, and how it is formed. Listen how to include a minor 3rd, diminished 5th, and minor 7th to add all kinds of color to a plain major scale:

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For more complete information on playing the blues, click on “Blues, Boogie, & Rhythm & Blues”

Everyone who has ever taken a piano lesson knows what a scale is and has probably had to practice them endlessly. The most common type of music scale is a major scale, but every major scale has a relative minor scale. They are called “relative minor scales” because they are related to a major scale. For example, the A minor scale is related to the C major scale because it uses the same notes — it just starts and ends on a different key. In other words, if I played the C scale but played it from A to A, I would be playing the A minor natural scale.

Watch this short video and you’ll understand:

For a complete course in all kinds of scales, click on All About Scales & How To Use Them

The blues scale is kind of a unique animal: half diatonic scale, half blue notes. Some people think that only the flat 3rd, flat 5th, and flat 7th of the diatonic scale is used in the blues, but that’s not the case. It’s the juxtaposition between the major 3rd and the minor 3rd, the perfect 5th and the diminished 5th, and the major 7th and the minor 7th that creates that facinating tension that creates the “blues” sound. The human voice can sing in the cracks between the major and minor 3rd, but that’s not the case with the piano — we are stuck with fixed pitches — so we need to create some tension between the two. Watch this short video and you’ll get the idea:

If you want more instruction on the blues, go to Playing The Blues on our online catalog of piano courses.

Every major scale has a relative minor scale - a “kissing cousin” — that shares the key signature of the major scale. That means that every major key has a relative minor key. To find the relative minor scale, locate the 6th degree of the major scale, and that becomes the root of the relative minor scale. And scales, of course, are the basis of keys. Watch this short video:

The full online catalog of courses on music theory and piano playing is at PlayPianoCatalog.com

The word “tetrachord” conjures up an image of some strange chord, maybe with four notes. But a tetrachord is not a chord at all — it is a scale — a four-note scale. Hook two tetrachords together and you have a major scale.

Watch the short video below and you’ll quickly understand:

Major chords are formed from major scales by taking the root, 3rd, and 5th of a major scale. But to know which notes are the root, 3rd, and 5th, you need to know how a major scale is formed out of whole steps and half steps.

Here is the formula:

Start on any note, then go up a whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step until you get to the note an octave above where you started.
It’s easy to see in the Key of C, since all the piano keys are white keys. But in any other major key, there will be one or more black keys in the scale.

Listen to the following podcast by clicking on the player below:

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Melodies (the tune of a song) are made from scales, and sometimes purely from scales.
In “The First Noel”, for example, the melody is made entirely from the diatonic scale. I demonstrate it in the key of C, but the same would be true in any other major key. Watch this short video:

Lots of great courses on this type of thing over at our catalog.

Every major scale has a “kissing cousin” which is related to it known as a “relative minor scale”. It is related because it uses the same notes as the relative major scale in its natural form.
There are three types of minor scales: natural minor, harmonic minor, and melodic minor. Watch this 8-minute video: