Western Scales Part 1

Though this is not really a part of Carnatic music per se, some understanding of Western scales actually helps a lot in understanding light Classical and Film music and even some advance concepts in Carnatic. We will briefly discuss the Western scales.

We will begin with the Western notes. Like the S R G M (but quite unlike it too), are the Western notes of C, D, E, F, G, A, B. It is similar in the sense that there are also 7 notes and 5 half notes (sharps) in the Western music making a total of 12 similar to Carnatic music. And this is where the similarity ends at least theoretically. While the adhara shadja can be fixed at any frequency and will therefore determine the rest of swarasthanas, the notes in WCM (Western Classical Music) are fixed. That is the middle C is always at a fixed frequency (typically tuned by a piano) and so are the rest of the notes. The white keys on a piano are always the full notes (C, D, E, F etc) and the black keys are always half notes (#s like C#, D# etc). They never change. While going through some of these scales it might be easier for you to visualize them on a piano so here's an image to help you


Note that C is always to the left of the group of 2 black keys and never anywhere else. Recall from our earlier discussion that, unlike the Western C, the adhara shadja can be pegged at any position to the convenience of the singer or the artist.

Will continue with major/minor scales in a different post