The Chromatic Scale

Musical Notation in Western Music

In Western music, there are only seven note names. These notes are as follows:

A B C D E F G

Basically, they're the letters A to G. We don't use any other alphabet letters to denote other sounds. To demonstrate this, let's take a look at the 5th string of the guitar because it conveniently starts on an "A".

As you can see, after the G, we cycle back to using another A (and B, C, D, etc. again), instead of an H. Although this system may seem arbitrary, it has to do with the frequencies of sound waves and their mathematical ratios that produce pleasant sounds, leading to only use 7 unique letters.

Sharps & Flats

Now, you've probably noticed that inbetween these notes on the guitar fretboard are some frets we haven't named. To denote these "inbetween" sounds, we use a system of sharps (♯) and flats (♭) in Western music. Sharps and flats are basically a way to denote these other sounds without breaking our seven-uniquely-named-letter system. So, we have:

A A♯/B♭ B C C♯/D♭ D D♯/E♭ E F F♯/G♭ G G♯/A♭

Go ahead and try playing all the sharps and flats on the guitar fretboard!

You've probably noticed that each of the sharp and flat notes that are on the same fret sound the same. These sharp/flat notes are actually equivalent. So, an A♯ is the same sound/note as a B♭, and the same for the other sharp/flat notes.

When two notes have the same pitch, but different names, we call them enharmonic. The reason we have two different ways of naming these notes has to do with other music theory rules and semantics about scales that we won't really get into because they're unimportant for the average guitarist (judge for yourself). Just keep in mind that these notes are interchangeable.

You may have also noticed there are no sharps or flats between B/C and E/F. To understand why this is, we'll have to talk about the concept of whole steps and half steps.

Whole Steps & Half Steps

A whole step between two notes on a guitar is the distance of two frets:

A half step between two notes on guitar is the distance of just one fret:

Sharps take a note and raise them by a half step higher. Flats do the opposite -- when you flat a note, it makes the note sound a half step lower.

But as you can see in the half step fretboard demonstration, there aren't any frets inbetween B/C and E/F left for us to create any sharps/flats. B to C and E to F are half steps, not whole steps like all the other adjacent letter notes. Sonically speaking, using the Western system of music, there just isn't any "room" for another pitch between B/C and E/F. It basically goes back to the historical choices made by the ancient Greeks that our llama friend alluded to before.

So, you can really actually think of B♯ as enharmonic to C, and C♭ as enharmonic to B, although doing so isn't technically using correct music theory terminology.

The Chromatic Scale

Now that we've covered all our bases, we can finally talk about -- drumroll -- the chromatic scale! Here it is in all its glory:

Look familiar? Yup, we've been building up to the chromatic scale all along! A scale is a set of musical notes ordered in some way by pitch. So, the chromatic scale is just a musical scale with twelve pitches that are each a half step above/below another.

What we're looking at above (and what we've been looking at throughout this lesson) is the chromatic scale starting on an "A", but really, you can have the chromatic scale start on any other pitch. As an example, these 12 notes from D to D make up the "D" chromatic scale.

The chromatic scale doesn't have to start on an open string note either -- it can be any note!

The most common one you'll probably see when learning music theory is the chromatic scale starting on a C. This is because of how a piano's keys are laid out. On a piano, all the sharps and flats are conveniently laid out so that they're only the black notes, and all the natural notes are on white keys.

Cool, I Understand The Chromatic Scale. Now What?

Sweet! Next lesson we'll explore some practical uses to knowing how the chromatic scale works, such as how you can utilize it to tune your guitar and how it maps across your fretboard.