Scales can be very scary for people. But in point of fact there are only 12 major scales.. and most minor scales are drawn from the same arrangements of notes as the major scales.

Here is a video of me showing one of my sax students how to work out all 12 scales when you just know one to start with. It’s much better to be able to work scales out for yourself, than to stand in front of a piece of music reading them. This technique will work fine for guitar players also. It is based on a theory called the circle of fifths, this can also be called the circle of fourths (in the other direction), or sometimes the circle of sevenths.. Excuse the science, I am a secret theory lover… And by the way, music theory is much much easier than almost any decent computer game.. took me about a month to learn music theory to about grade 8 standard… took a bit longer than that to make a nice sound on my instruments…

ps, excuse the weird video shape, it was recorded on a student’s iphone during a lesson.. All my tips and videos are used in practical lessons.. not academic theories…

pps.. I am playing slowly enough for students to be able to play along – great way to get double benefits of improving your tone and tuning at the same time!