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Major scale

A commonly used diatonic scale containing 7 notes

Sam Blakelock avatar
Written by Sam Blakelock
Updated over 3 years ago

The major scale, also known as the Ionian mode, is the most common scale in Western music.

It’s a diatonic scale containing seven notes in the pattern of whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half steps.

Example: C D E F G A B C. The last note, C (8th note), is one octave higher than the root of the scale.

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