How The Tune Of a Song Comes From Scales

Today, I’d like to illustrate how simple music really is and how the tune of a song comes from scales. Let me play The First Noel.

I’ll just play a part of the song. Now, I’m going to play just the melody.

It just repeats from there. Very little change after that. Did you notice that thing? The only notes I used were the notes of the C scale, nothing else. Didn’t go above C, didn’t go below C. It was just all contained there. Now, listen to this.

Same thing, right? Nothing but C to C. Just the scale. By learning one scale there is literally hundreds of songs that you could play. Now, some songs, of course, go higher or lower, but there is many, many that just contain that scale. It’s really quite simple. I want to show you something else. Now, watch this.

Did you notice my left hand? I’ll just play the bass part.

The left hand just played a counter melody while the right hand is playing the melody. My left hand is walking right down the C scale. The only thing is right before I got to C I went to G and down, but there are so many songs that are just like that, so look for the simplicity. Don’t try to make it too hard. By looking at the analysis of a song and figuring out what it’s basically made of – the simple chords, the simple scales – you can get an insight into what songs are and they’re really not as hard as you might think they are. That’s our short lesson for today. See you tomorrow. Bye.

Here is the YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHsRYL0kKG4

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