GressusUkulele · Reference

How to Build a Scale on Ukulele

Fig. 1 — the Fretboard Visualiser

Every neck diagram in this book is this tool. Choose a key and a mode, and see the scale across the whole neck at once.

Most ukulele players learn scales as shapes. You are shown a pattern of dots, you play it up and down until your fingers know it, and it works — right up until someone asks you to play in a different key, or over a chord that is not the one you learned it against, and the shape turns out to have taught you nothing about the music.

A scale is not a shape. A scale is a formula — a fixed pattern of distances from a starting note. The shape is only what that formula looks like once it has been laid across four strings tuned the way a ukulele happens to be tuned.

Learn the formula and the shapes stop being twelve separate things to memorise. They become one map of the neck — which is what the second half of this book is about.

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How to Build a Scale01

GressusThe tool

Fig. 1 — the Fretboard Visualiser

Full screen

Every neck diagram in this book is this tool. Choose a key and a mode, and see the scale across the whole neck at once.

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How to Build a Scale02

Chapter oneFoundations

What a scale is

A scale is an ordered set of notes, chosen from the twelve available, that repeats at the octave. Play the set in order and you have a scale; play them in any other order and you have a melody. The set itself is what gives a piece of music its colour — the same tune played from a major set and a minor set is recognisably the same tune, in two different moods.

Two things define any scale:

A root

The note it is built from and returns to.

A formula

The distances of every other note from that root.

Change the root and you change the key. Change the formula and you change the type of scale. Those are separate decisions, and keeping them separate is most of the work.

The semitone, and the pattern

A semitone is the smallest step in Western music. On a ukulele it is one fret, on any string. Two semitones make a tone — two frets. Twelve semitones bring you back where you started, an octave higher, which on a ukulele is twelve frets up any string.

What a scale is03

Chapter oneFoundations

The major scale

The major scale is seven notes, and its pattern of steps is tone – tone – semitone – tone – tone – tone – semitone. Start on any note, apply that pattern, and you have a major scale.

Table 1 · The major scale, step by step

Step		Note
—	start	C
+2	tone	D
+2	tone	E
+1	semitone	F
+2	tone	G
+2	tone	A
+2	tone	B
+1	semitone	C

The minor scale

The minor scale has its own pattern: tone – semitone – tone – tone – semitone – tone – tone. The same seven steps as the major scale, with the two semitones in different places.

Table 2 · The minor scale, step by step

Step		Note
—	start	A
+2	tone	B
+1	semitone	C
+2	tone	D
+2	tone	E
+1	semitone	F
+2	tone	G
+2	tone	A

Two semitone steps, and where they fall is what makes a scale sound major or minor. Move them and you get a different scale entirely — which, as it turns out, is exactly what modes are.

Major and minor04

Chapter oneDegrees

Degrees: the numbers matter more than the names

Rather than counting steps every time, number the notes of a scale from its root. These numbers are scale degrees, and they are how musicians actually talk about scales.

Table 3 · Degrees: every interval from the root

Deg.	Name	Semitones
1	Root / tonic	0
♭2	Minor second	1
2	Major second	2
♭3	Minor third	3
3	Major third	4
4	Perfect fourth	5
♯4/♭5	Tritone	6
5	Perfect fifth	7
♯5/♭6	Minor sixth	8
6	Major sixth	9
♭7	Minor seventh	10
7	Major seventh	11

Degrees05

Chapter oneDegrees

Major scale1234567Minor scale12♭345♭6♭7

Every other scale in this book is described by how it differs from the top row. The minor scale is the first: the same row with the 3rd, 6th and 7th each lowered a semitone.

The reason to think in degrees rather than note names is that degrees travel. The ♭3 sounds minor in every key; the note E♭ only sounds minor in some of them. Once you hear degrees, you have learned the scale once instead of twelve times.

Spelling: one of each letter

A scale is not just a set of pitches, it is a set of named pitches, and the naming follows a rule: a seven-note scale uses each letter name exactly once. That is why the same pitch is sometimes written F♯ and sometimes G♭.

Table 4 · One of each letter: C, G and F major

C major	CDEFGAB
G major	GABCDEF♯
F major	FGAB♭CDE

G major's seventh has to be some kind of F, so it is F♯ and never G♭. F major's fourth has to be some kind of B, so it is B♭ and never A♯. Get the letters right and the accidentals follow automatically.

Spelling06

Chapter twoThe modes

One scale, seven starting points

Take the seven notes of C major and, instead of starting on C, start on D — same notes, same order, different home. It sounds different, because the pattern of tones and semitones has rotated relative to your new root. On a keyboard the seven notes of C major are the white keys, so a mode is simply where on the white keys you start.

Fig. 2 — the white keys, from C and from A

From C · major

From A · minor

The same seven notes. From C the semitones fall between the 3rd and 4th and the 7th and 8th: major. From A they fall between the 2nd and 3rd and the 5th and 6th: the minor scale from page 4. You already know two modes.

The modes07

Chapter twoThe modes

Start on each of the seven white keys in turn and you get the seven modes of the major scale. Every mode has a parent major scale — the key whose notes it borrows. This matters enormously on ukulele, and it is the reason the chapter on the neck works the way it does.

Table 5 · The modes of C major

Mode of C major	Notes
C ionian	CDEFGAB
D dorian	DEFGABC
E phrygian	EFGABCD
F lydian	FGABCDE
G mixolydian	GABCDEF
A aeolian	ABCDEFG
B locrian	BCDEFGA

The notes are shared. The home is not.

Knowing that D dorian uses C major's notes does not mean playing C major and hoping. If the band is on Dm and you play a C major scale thinking “C”, you will keep landing on C, and over Dm that sounds unfinished, not like home. A mode is a sound you aim at, not a shape you get away with.

The parent key08

Chapter twoThe modes

From brightest to darkest

The white keys give the modes one order, Table 5. The ear hears another, from bright to dark. Laid out by degree, each mode in Table 6 lowers one note of the mode above it.

Table 6 · The seven modes, brightest to darkest

Mode	Degrees
Lydianbrightest	123♯4567
Ionianthe major scale	1234567
Mixolydianmajor, bluesy	123456♭7
Dorianwarm minor	12♭3456♭7
Aeolianthe natural minor scale	12♭345♭6♭7
Phrygiandark minor	1♭2♭345♭6♭7
Locriandarkest, unsettled	1♭2♭34♭5♭6♭7

The marked note is the one that has just been lowered. Lydian raises the fourth and is the brightest; Locrian flattens almost everything and barely feels like a home key at all.

The modes09

Chapter twoThe modes

Hearing it

Brightness is something you hear before you can name it. One root, seven modes, one note changing at a time.

Fig. 3 — the mode list in the tool

The Fretboard Visualiser's mode list, open: the seven modes from Lydian to Locrian, each with its shade, then the other scales

The mode list in the tool: the first seven are the modes, brightest to darkest, in the same shades as Table 6.

In the tool, choose C and Lydian.
Let the open C string ring, the lowest note on the ukulele, and play the scale up and back down above it.
Choose the next mode in the list and play it again. Listen for the one note that has moved; Table 6 marks it.
Carry on down to Locrian. Somewhere past Aeolian, C stops sounding like home.

Hearing it10

Chapter twoFamilies

The other scale families

The major scale is one family among several. Each is built from a different formula, and each has seven modes of its own, just as the major scale does. You don't need them all; these are the ones players reach for.

Melodic minor

The major scale with a ♭3, and nothing else changed. Its modes are the workhorses of jazz harmony.

Table 7 · Melodic minor and the modes players use

Melodic minor	12♭34567
Lydian dominant bright, and restless over a dominant chord	123♯456♭7
Altered every tension a dominant chord can carry: a resolution held back	1♭9♯93♯11♭13♭7

Harmonic minor

Natural minor with the seventh raised back up, which restores the pull home and opens a tone-and-a-half gap between ♭6 and 7. That gap is the sound.

Table 8 · Harmonic minor and the mode players use

Harmonic minor	12♭345♭67
Phrygian dominant the Spanish and Middle-Eastern sound, and a good deal of metal	1♭2345♭6♭7

These modes can be ordered bright to dark too, but they don't change one note at a time, so the order is less use to the ear than the major scale's.

Families11

Chapter twoFamilies

Five notes, six notes, and the symmetrical ones

Pentatonic — five notes instead of seven. The major pentatonic is the major scale with the 4th and 7th removed; the minor pentatonic is its fifth mode. Between them they account for a great deal of the melody in folk and popular song.

Table 9 · The two pentatonic scales

Major pentatonic	12356
Minor pentatonic	1♭345♭7

Blues — the minor pentatonic with one extra note, the ♭5, sitting between the 4 and the 5. Six notes, and the extra one is a passing note more than a resting note.

Table 10 · The blues scale

Blues

1♭34♭55♭7

Note the spelling: the ♭5 and the 5 share a letter name, which breaks the one-letter-each rule on purpose, because the sound is worth more than the tidiness.

Symmetrical scales are built from a repeating interval rather than a key. The chromatic scale is all twelve notes, a semitone apart. You won't play a tune in it; it is the set every scale in this book is chosen from. The whole-tone scale steps in tones throughout; the diminished scales alternate tone and semitone.

Why symmetrical scales simply recur

Because they repeat every few frets by construction, the same shape comes round again and again along the neck.

Families12

Chapter threeThe fretboard

The strings are not in order

Pluck the four open strings, starting with the one nearest your chin: G, C, E, A. The first note is higher than the second. That is the ukulele's one surprise. The G string is tuned high, so the lowest note on the instrument is the open C, not the G. This is called re-entrant tuning.

Put the strings in the order they sound and the steps between them are small: C to E is four frets, E to G three, G to A two. On a piano, C major is one physical thing, the white keys. On a ukulele the same notes are spread across four short keyboards, in this order.

Fig. 4 — the four strings in the order they sound

Each string is a piano keyboard, one key per fret, starting on its open note, with the lowest-sounding at the bottom: C, E, G, A. Ringed: where each string meets the next one up, four, three and two frets along. C, in its colour, lands at a different fret on every string.

The tool, like ukulele tab, draws the strings in the order they lie instead: A at the top and G at the bottom, below the C it sounds above. Two consequences follow.

The fretboard13

Chapter threeThe fretboard

The same note exists in several places

So a scale is not a line on the ukulele: the same seven notes turn up again and again, even on a short neck. The open G is also the E string's 3rd fret.

A scale crosses the strings out of order

Play C major up from the open C: C and D on the C string, E and F on the E string, then the open G, then A, B and C on the A string. On the tool that run goes from the third row to the second, down to the bottom, then up to the top.

Reading the whole neck

On guitar and bass, scales are learned one hand position at a time. A ukulele's neck is short enough to see whole, so the tool shows every note at once, and this book does too.

In C major every open string is already in the scale: G, C, E and A are its 5, 1, 3 and 6. Strum all four and you hear them together, a C6 chord: the C major chord with its 6th added.

Some players fit a low G string instead. Then the strings are in order, lowest first, as on a guitar. Every note in this book sits at the same fret either way; only the G string sounds an octave lower.

The fretboard14

Chapter fourThe whole neck

C major across the whole neck

There are no positions to learn here: one map, read outward from its roots. Find the C on each string first, then the scale around it.

Fig. 5 — C major, the whole neck

Every C major note on the ukulele up to the 12th fret. At the 12th every string starts again, an octave up.

Table 11 · Where C sits on each string

String		C at fret
1st	A	3
2nd	E	8
3rd	C	0 and 12
4th	G	5

The whole neck15

Chapter fourThe whole neck

Start at the nut

From the open C string, one octave of C major sits in the first three frets: C and D on the C string; E, F and G on the E string; A, B and C on the A string. The G string adds G and A again, at the same pitch as the E string's G and the open A, though you might expect it to be the lowest string.

Fig. 6 — C major at the nut

Frets 0–3: every C major note under one hand at the nut.

Then the octave

At the 12th fret every string starts again. Everything between the nut and the 5th fret repeats from the 12th, an octave up, so learning the first five frets well is learning the top of the neck too.

The whole neck16

Chapter fiveModes on the neck

The idea most explanations skip

The map belongs to the key, not to the mode.

If you are playing D dorian, you are inside C major. C major's notes are already sitting on the neck. You do not learn a new map for dorian — you play C major's notes and treat D as home. What changes is not the geometry; it is which note you resolve to, which note you land on at the end of a phrase, and which note the band is calling home.

Because the notes stay put while the root moves, every mode of C major lives on the same map. What changes from mode to mode is which note you treat as home.

To hear it, take C major at the nut and play it over a C major chord, ending your phrases on C. Then play the same notes over a D minor chord, ending on D. Nothing under your fingers has moved, and the second sounds dorian.

Seven modes. One map. No new shapes at all.

That is the whole answer to "how do I play modes on ukulele", and it is why a player who has drilled scales for years can still not use them: the shapes were never the missing piece. The missing piece was knowing which note is home, and hearing the difference when it changes.

Modes on the neck17

Chapter fiveModes on the neck

Fig. 7 — C ionian, the whole neck

Fig. 8 — D dorian, the whole neck

The same frets. The same notes. The same shape. Only the root has moved — and with it, the sound.

In the tool, change C ionian to D dorian and watch the notes stay where they are while the root markers move. That single interaction is this chapter in ten seconds.

Modes on the neck18

Chapter sixPentatonics

The pentatonic scales

The major pentatonic is the major scale with two notes left out, the 4 and the 7. They are not chosen at random. The major scale has only two semitone steps, 3 to 4 and 7 to the root, and the 4 and the 7 each sit at one of them. Those semitones are where a scale pulls and clashes. Take them out and no two notes are a semitone apart, which is why the pentatonic sounds open and sits over almost anything.

Fig. 9 — the major scale, minus the 4 and the 7

Major scale1234567

Major pentatonic12356

The marked notes are the 4 and the 7, one from each semitone step. What is left is the major pentatonic. In C they are F and B.

Fig. 10 — C major pentatonic: the whole neck, without F and B

Every C major note to the 12th fret, with its 4 and 7 marked. The five notes left are C major pentatonic, and they sit exactly where A minor pentatonic's do on the facing page.

Pentatonics19

Chapter sixPentatonics

The minor scale and its pentatonic

A minor uses C major's notes, so it lives on the same map: treat A as home. Leave out its 2 and ♭6, B and F, the same two notes, and you have A minor pentatonic: C major pentatonic's five notes, with A as home.

Fig. 11 — A minor pentatonic: the whole neck, without B and F

Every note of A minor, with the two left out marked. What you play is A minor pentatonic.

One set of shapes. Two homes.

Major and minor pentatonic share every note on the neck; what changes is the note you land on. For A major pentatonic, move everything three frets lower.

Minor and pentatonic20

Chapter sixBlues

Blues

Now add one note, but not one you took out: E♭, the ♭5, between the 4 and the 5. That is the blues scale: minor, minus two, plus one. Pass through the E♭ rather than resting on it.

Fig. 12 — A blues: the pentatonic plus E♭

The ringed note is the blue note, the ♭5.

Why there are no positions here

On guitar and bass, scales are learned in five positions, and each has a name. On ukulele the tool shows the whole neck at once, and this book does the same. Many ukulele books do teach positions, and they work. This tool and this book show the whole neck instead.

Blues21

Chapter sixIn use

What each scale is for

A scale is only useful against harmony. This is the shortest honest summary of what fits where.

Table 12 · What each scale fits over

MajorMinorDominantDiminished

Scale	Fits over
The seven modes, brightest to darkest
Lydian	maj7♯11maj9
Ionian	maj7add96
Mixolydian	7913
Dorian	m7m9m11m6
Aeolian	m7m9
Phrygian	m7sus♭9
Locrian	m7♭5
Pentatonic and blues
Major pentatonic	maj76add9
Minor pentatonic	m7m9
Blues	7m79m9
From the minor families
Phrygian dominant	7♭97♭9♭13
Lydian dominant	7♯1113♯11
Altered	7alt7♯9♭5
Symmetrical
Whole tone	7♯57♭5
Diminished	dim77♭9

In use22

Chapter sevenIn practice

In practice

Learn the nut properly before the rest of the neck

C major in the first three frets, played until you can find any degree in it without counting, is worth more than the whole neck played top to bottom.

Practise moving up the neck

The useful skill is leaving the nut. Play a phrase that starts in the first three frets and finishes past the 5th, on the same notes higher up.

Say the degrees while you play

Not the note names — the degrees. It is slow and it feels ridiculous, and it is the single fastest route to hearing what you are playing rather than hoping.

Play scales against a chord, not against silence

A scale played on its own has no character. This is especially true of modes, which are essentially inaudible without harmony underneath.

Learn the pentatonic and the full scale as one thing

The minor pentatonic is the natural minor with two notes removed. Learning them separately is duplicated work.

In practice23

Chapter sevenQuestions

Common questions

Do I need to learn the whole neck?

Eventually, but not all at once. Learn the first five frets in one key, then the same key from the 5th fret up, and practise moving between them. Once that joins up in one key, take it to the others.

What is the difference between a mode and a scale?

None, mechanically — a mode is a scale. The word signals where it came from: dorian is what you get by treating the second degree of a major scale as home.

If D dorian has the same notes as C major, why name it?

Because the notes are not the music. Which note you resolve to, which notes you hold, and which chord sits underneath decide what a listener hears.

Why is the G string higher than the C string?

It is tuned that way on purpose: re-entrant tuning, the ukulele's traditional sound. It keeps all four strings in one bright register, and it means the open C, not the G, is the lowest note you have.

Is CAGED used on ukulele?

Some teachers use it, since a ukulele is tuned like a guitar's top four strings, five frets higher. This tool doesn't: on ukulele it shows the whole neck, and so does this book.

Which scale should I learn first?

Minor pentatonic, then the major scale, then the modes of the major scale. In that order each is an addition to the last rather than a fresh start.

Do these shapes work on guitar and bass?

The notes do, but the shapes don't carry straight across. A ukulele is tuned like a guitar's top four strings, five frets higher, so its shapes are those strings' shapes moved. The guitar and bass editions teach the neck in five positions.

Questions24

TOM · Teacher Of Music

The old textbook, brought to life.

Every diagram here is a tool you actually use — free, and built to practise with.

Practise free with Gressus