Six Essential Scales for `Ukulele
From these six essential scale you can get through a wide variety of traditional and contemporary music.
PUBLISHED: Jan 2, 2005 • UPDATED: Jan 11, 2019 • LESSON CODE: UL04 • VISITS: 118
ukulele Subjects: scales • intermediate • advanced • jazz • beginner • quickstart • modes • core
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Six Essential Scales for `Ukulele
The six essential scales are: Blues, Major Pentatonic, Mixolydian, Dorian, Aeolian, and Ionian. From the six essential scales, you can get through a wide variety of traditional and contemporary music.
Here are the six essential scales, in open position, the key of C. Check out this lessons Videos to see the Ionian and Aeolian scales played on ukulele.
What IS a Scale?
A scale is simply a collection of pitches or notes, not really a "this is a Jazz scale", "this is a Blues" or "this is a Rock scale". It's how a scale is used that really matters not its name.
Most music starts with a scale. The melody, chords, licks and riffs all can be related back to a particular scale or scales.
The Six Essential scales ( in no particulate order ):
- Blues (Minor Pentatonic)
- Pentatonic (Major Pentatonic)
- Dorian (Minor)
- Mixolydian (Dominant)
- Aeolian (Natural Minor)
- Ionian (Major)
There are two scales that can be the memorized and other essential scales referenced from these two. These two scales are the Major and Natural Minor scales. The Major and Natural Minor scales are traditional scales and common scales in all forms of contemporary music.
This lesson explores the Major and Natural Minor scales and their derivations.
QuickStart Scale and Arpeggio Fingerings for Ukulele
This lesson uses the same page format as the QuickStart Scale Fingering series of books.
QuickStart Scale Fingerings for Ukulele 3 volumes.
C, G, and D tuning.
(QuickStart Scale Fingerings for Ukulele)
The QuickStart Scale Fingerings Vol 1 covers the Blues, Pentatonic, Dorian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Ionian scales.
Traditional names for these scales are: Minor Pentatonic, Major Pentatonic, Minor, Dominant, Natural Minor and Major.
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Six Essential Ukulele Scales
The Six Essential Ukulele Scales series is based on the fingering principles from my series of books in the QuickStart Scale and Arpeggio Fingerings series.
The six essential scales are: Blues, Major Pentatonic, Mixolydian, Dorian, Aeolian, and Ionian. These six can get you through a wide variety of traditional and contemporary music.
A scale is simply collection of pitches or notes, not really “this is a Jazz scale”, “this is a Blues” or “this is a Rock scale”. It’s how a scale is used that really matters.
Most music starts with a scale. The melody, chords, licks and riffs all can be related back to a particular scale or scales.
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