>Step by step

Getting to know the chromatic scale

1 So here’s our old mate the C major scale again – and this time I’m showing it in its eight-note guise, with the high octave of the root note, C, in full effect. We’ve got eight notes then, from C to C, occupying the white notes of the piano keyboard –C, D, E, F, G, A, B and C. 2 What if we were to fill in all of the black notes in between? Let’s start by adding in the note between the C and the

C#. D– This is one semitone higher than the C and one semitone lower than the D. But we have a choice when we come to naming

C# this note. I’ve called it here, because it’s a C note raised – or ‘sharpened’ – by one semitone. 3 We could just as easily call this note a Db, as it’s essentially also a D that’s been lowered – or flattened – by an interval of one semitone. So this note could either C# Db. be or These two possible names for a single note pitch are catchily known as ‘enharmonic equivalents’. So how do we figure out which name to choose? 4 When writing, or ‘spelling’ a chromatic scale, the rule of thumb is to avoid confusion by sticking to either sharps or flats, rather than using a bewildering mixture of the two. We continue up the keyboard, filling in the black notes and naming them according to one format. I

C#, started with so I’m sticking with sharps

D#. for now, the next one being 5 This gives us a chromatic scale made up of twelve discrete tones – thirteen if we include the high octave of the C we started on. All the notes are immediately adjacent to their neighbours on the keyboard, a semitone apart, giving us

C#, D#, F#, G#, A#, C, D, E, F, G, A, B and C. Note that there’s no black note between E and F or B and C. 6 We can move this chromatic scale around the keyboard, and also change direction if we want to. For instance, here’s a descending chromatic scale from F to F. Note that, since they use all twelve tones that make up the octave, chromatic scales don’t have a particular tonal centre, and neither do they need a key signature. They’re simply sequences of semitones.

7 So how can we apply this in the real world? One instrument that can use chromaticism really effectively is the bass. Here’s a kind of jazz/funk fusion section played over eight bars in the key of C minor. Check out what the bass is doing in bar 8, as the chord progression turns around and gets ready to repeat. 8 The first note is the C root, followed by the same note an octave higher. But

Eb, then we jump up a minor third to also hitting its octave too. Following this, we descend a semitone to the D (and its octave again), before dropping another

Db semitone to the and do the same octave trick again. So we’ve played a descending partial chromatic scale in octaves! 9 For our next example, we’ll use an organ solo over the same track. The first four bars consist of an alternating pair of little stabby riffs, the second of which is going to be the focus for some chromatic trickery. It’s a little three-note lick, consisting of a fragment of a descending C minor pentatonic scale. Starting on F, we

Eb hit followed by a C. Simple! 10 What we’re going to do is repeat this lick throughout bar 6, but move it chromatically down the keyboard, a semitone at a time, until we hit the point where it sits over the underlying chord once more. So the first instance is as it was played previously in bars 2 and 4, just at a different place timing-wise – we’ve left a sixteenth-note rest at the start of the bar. 11 For the rest of the bar, each three successive sixteenths are filled with a new version of the lick, each one moved

Eb- down a semitone. So our original is F- C,

Eb-Db-Bb, next up we have E-D-B, then then

Db- Ab. D-C-A, and finally B- While these clusters aren’t chromatic in themselves, it’s the movement or transposition of the lick itself that is chromatic in this instance. 12 So finally, the descending pattern in bar 6 finishes up on its target note, a slightly longer C on the downbeat of bar 7 – we’ve reached our destination by way of a chromatic transposition of a repeated lick. Immediately afterwards, our

Bb- final version of the lick (C- G) occurs, kicking off a mad solo run down and back up the C blues scale.