What Are Scales and Why Do They Even Exist?

In music a scale is a series of notes arranged by pitch.  You can have an ascending scale going up in pitch from its lowest note to its highest or a descending scale which goes from high to low.

Different scales are given different names.  Your most recognisable scale would probably be the major scale which sounds like this....

Often singers will sing a major scale using solfege words; do, re, mi, fa, sol, la ti, do.

Other common scales are your minor scales and pentatonic scales.

You have likely heard musicians practicing their scales and may have done your share of scale practice as well but an important question to consider is why?  What is the purpose of learning and practicing scales?

To understand why we practice scales it is crucial to recognise that most of the time, in most songs, all or most of the notes will come from a single scale.  Thus, the musician who has practiced the scale on which a song is built will more easily be able to find the correct notes because those notes will already be familiar from practicing the scale.

For example; if I know that the song Happy Birthday uses a C major scale and I know my C major scale inside and out on my instrument it will make learning the song that much easier for me.

And that's about the scale of it, now go practice!