Hi, everyone I teach game development professionally from Texas.

To get started we need to know our basics.

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The major scale is a very useful scale for fundamentals but useless by itself. 

I am going to show you how to use the major scale in a useful way. 

 

Lets label the major scale from 1-7.

1 - the key or first note in the major scale

2 - the second note of the major scale

3 - the third note of the major scale (important for emotions)

4 - the fourth note of the major scale

5 - the fifth note of the major scale

6 - the sixth note of the major scale

7 - the seventh note of the major scale

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Okay we have labeled all seven notes of the major scale

Notice here we have the 3rd note that provides the emotions of the music. 

Okay, how do we use this 3rd note if the major scale is useless by itself?

Well, we use this major scale to construct other scales and chords. 

Lets, construct a chord from the c major scale.

Lets first take our C Major scale and number our notes.

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1 - C (the key)

2 - D

3 - E

4 - F

5 - G

6 - A

7 - B

Okay we have numbered our notes.

Now let us take every other note and number them starting with 1. 

 

1 - C

3 - E

5 - G

7 - B

 

Hmm...It looks like we have the notes necessary for emotion.

To understand this let us list all 12 western notes and mark the new chord we made. 

C - 1

C#

D -

D#

E - 3

F

F#

G - 5

G#

A

A#

B - 7

C

Now, let us list the 12 notes counting the number of steps between each note like this.

C - 0  (<--------------------chord note)

C# - 1

D - 2

D# - 3

E - 4 or 0 (<--------------------chord note)

F -  1

F# - 2

G - 3 or 0  (<--------------------chord note)

G# - 1

A - 2

A# - 3

B -  4  or 0 (<--------------------chord note)

C -- 0

 

Notice that the important notes are 0, 3, or 4.

It is that 3 to 4 half steps that cause the emotions. 

Now it is only that 0 note to the 3 or 4 that creates that emotion. Notice how each note has there own unique complimentary emotion to the note above it. 

 

C has E

E has G

G has B

 

So to make things simple when C and E are played together they create a happy emotion.

Why is this? Well,l because of the tones of a human's voice.

Our voice naturally projects the Pentatonic scale per each word we speak.

The pentatonic scale usually is the 5 fundamental notes of our voices and 5 notes of our natural voice.

It just so happens it is 3 or 4 half steps that cause emotional responses when we talk.

Scales are designed to take advantage of the emotions that humans express.

 

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If you play all these notes at the same time  1 , 3 , 5, and 7 it will create a happy emotion.

Why?

4 is the magic number for happy sounds. 

Also since the bass note in a chord is considered a low frequency it can travel longer and is easiest to hear.

Meaning any note closest to that bass note has the strongest emotion. 

Meaning the 3rd note of the chord 1,3,5,7 is considered the greatest emotion. 

Which 1 to 3 is 4 steps as shown below. 

 

C - 0  (<--------------------chord note, root note, bass note, can travel the farthest through air [thus it is louder])

C# - 1

D - 2

D# - 3 

E - 4 or 0 (<--------------------chord note, happy note)

 

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Can you guess what the lucky 3 number does? 

Lucky number 3 is for sad emotions. 

C - 0  (<--------------------chord note, root note, bass note, can travel the farthest through air [thus it is louder])

C# - 1

D - 2

D# - 3  (<--------------------chord note, sad note)

E - 4 or 0 

 

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So you do not want to learn scales or note names and like to play by ear. 

Lucky you, you do not necessarily have to.

You only have to learn what a half step is for your instrument and your 2 magic numbers. 3 or 4. 

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If anyone would like more turorials please comment bellow. 

You can check out my music here. 

https://opengameart.org/users/amac