You already know of major and minor scales and you’re probably playing some or all of these scales in your lessons but those 48 scales barely scratch the surface of the many types of scales that we find in the musical world. Jazz musicians, for example use certain types of scales to achieve the jazz sound while musicians all over the world use various types of scales to achieve the sound that makes their style unique. It would take a long time to go through each of these different types of scales but here are a few that you might consider trying as you expand your musical vocabulary.

Chromatic Scale

The chromatic scale isn’t really all that “out there” as scales go. In fact, all classically trained musicians have to learn the chromatic scale because it helps with technical facility on their instrument. The Chromatic scale is simply every half step in between an octave. A Chromatic scale starting on C would have twelve notes and end on the C above it. If it sounds easy, beware. It’s a lot harder to play than it is to figure out.

Blues Scales

A blues scale, also called a hexatonic scale in the academic world, is a scale based on six notes. Starting on C, those notes would be C, Eb, F, Gb, G, Bb, C. This is the scale that jazz musicians use to achieve the well known blues sound that comes with jazz music. Of course not all jazz music is based on the blues scales but as any jazz improvisation student knows, being able to improvise on a blues scale in any musical key is basic required knowledge before joining the ranks of the best jazz musicians.

Pentatonic Scale

The Pentatonic Scale is better known than you think. If you play only the black keys of the piano, you are playing a pentatonic scale. These scales are actually much more complicated than that. The two most common types are major and minor. An example of the major pentatonic scale is C, D, E, G, A, C. An example of the minor is C, Eb, F, G, Bb, C. Each of these are based on an interval pattern that can be transposed to begin on any note.
This scale is found all over the world including American music. Some people attribute the sound of this scale to far eastern sounding music but that is only one of many places in the world where this scale is commonly used.

Whole Tone Scale

The Whole Tone Scale is made entirely of major intervals and has only six notes. The notes of a whole tone scale are C, D, E, F#, G#, A# C. The whole tone scale isn’t as widely used as the pentatonic scale but it also has world wide appeal. Mozart was known to have used it as well as Rimsky-Korsakov. This is another scale that has a unique sound that composers use as a new musical color in their music.

Many other scales

There are many more scales to explore. Without too much work, you can find plenty of different scales online to try out and see what kinds of sounds are produced. You may even find that a piece of music you couldn’t figure now makes sense because you know the scale it was built around.

For info on many more different kinds of scales, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Musical_scales