Beginner Its all greek to me !!

[Ivan]

scrolled my nurd

Phrase of the week

 

[Targa]

which scrolled my nurd.

Phrase of the week

I think Jonesy was channelling Rambling Syd Rumpo.

 

[Jonesy]

I think Jonesy was channelling Rambling Syd Rumpo.

Carter in The Sweeney (Dennis Waterman)

 

[Profusia]

Hey welcome to the jungle

I'll add one more perspective to the replies, as you never know which one will help make something click, but apologies if you knew a lot of this already...

There are 2 scales you need to learn before anything else, which provide the context for everything else which follows (and helps it all make sense).

1) The major scale. If you don't think you know it yet, you probably actually do, by sound at least. Do, Re, Me, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do (or "Doe, Ray, Me, Far, Sew, La, Tea, Doe" as per the song lyrics from The Sound Of Music). Most commonly (and most easily) learned first as C Major: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and up to C again

Think of those notes as the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and so on, in the scale. So for example, the 3rd in C Major is E.

2) The chromatic scale. The chromatic scale includes additional notes which fall between some of the notes in the major scale. It represents the full scale of all the available notes in western music. For example, between C and D there is another note which doesn't have a name of its own but can be referred to as C# (C sharp) or Db (D flat). i.e. its up "half a step" from C, and its also down "half a step" from D. Essentially think of "sharp" as meaning up a bit in pitch, and "flat" as meaning down a bit in pitch.

There's also one of these midway notes between D and E, so its referred to as D# or Eb. So if E is the 3rd in C major, then Eb is the flat 3rd of C Major.

Note: there is NOT a note midway between E and F, nor one midway between B and C. So from E to F is also a "half step", whereas from F to G is 2 "half steps" because there is that other note (F#/Gb) between them.

So the chromatic scale upwards starting from C is...

C, C#(AKA Db), D, D#(AKA Eb), E, F, F#(AKA Gb), G, G#(AKA Ab), A, A#(AKA Bb), B, and up to C again.

Once you know those 2 scales, and can play them up and down the full range of your sax, any scale anyone ever throws at you in the future will make sense.