The history and origins of popular guitar scales

Have you ever wondered where various musical scales come from? Here are the origins of some of the most popular guitar scales.

Major

G Major Scale on Musical Keyboard.svg

The major scale, based on a specific pattern of whole and half steps, traces its origins back to Ancient Greece. Philosophers including Pythagoras examined the mathematical relationships between pitches and developed diatonic scale systems, including Lydian and Phrygian.

Minor

A melodic minor scale ascending

Minor scales are made up of seven stepwise pitches that form an octave arranged in one of three possible sequences which all have a half-step in common. Like the major scales, the minor scales developed from the ancient Greek modes. Ancient mathematician Ptolemy described the seven Greek modes as Dorian, Hypodorian, Phrygian, Hypophrygian, Lydian, Hypolydian, and Mixolydian. More modes were described in the 16th century.

Pentatonic

Minor pentatonic blues scale on A.

The five-note scale that’s so essential to rock and blues music is one of the oldest scales in the world, and seems to have been developed independently by ancient cultures all around the world, including China, West Africa, India, South America, and Indigenous Americans. Archaeologists have found flutes in Germany made of vulture bones that are 30 to 40 thousand years old and are tuned to the pentatonic scale.

Chromatic

Chromatic scale.

The chromatic scale utilizes 12 half notes in a scale, which can add tension and resolution into a piece of music. The word “chromatic” comes from the Greek word “khrōmatikos” (relating to color). The ancient Chinese also created a 12-note scale called Shí-èr-lǜ, a set of 12 fundamental notes from which other scales can be derived.

Arabic

Arabic music is based on maqams – groups of notes that are used together with the rules determining the relationships between them and their melodic pattern. Arabic scales are tuned differently than Western classical music – 5th notes are tuned based on the 3rd harmonic and the rest of the notes are tuned depending on which maqam you are in. The Arabian scale has its origins in the 9th century CE, by scholars including al-Mawsili and al-Kindi.

You can find every scale in the Fret Zealot app!