Major scale

Like many musical scales, it is made up of seven notes: the eighth duplicates the first at double its frequency so that it is called a higher octave of the same note (from Latin "octavus", the eighth).

The sequence of intervals between the notes of a major scale is: where "whole" stands for a whole tone (a red u-shaped curve in the figure), and "half" stands for a semitone (a red angled line in the figure).

Notably, an equal-tempered octave has twelve half steps (semitones) spaced equally in terms of the sound frequency ratio.

The seventh chords built on each scale degree follow a distinct pattern.

Moreover, the key signature of the piece of music (or section) will generally reflect the accidentals in the corresponding major scale.

It differs from melodic minor scale only by raising the third degree to a major third.

Plus, when expressing the names of minor scale keys as abbreviations, the Roman alphabet of the corresponding tonic note is sometimes lower case to indicate only the tonic note name.