Trying to understand it all

Think of a scale as just a group of notes that belong to a key, but centred around the root.

Generally, we practise them by starting on a root note, or at least should, just to keep things simple.

Scale diagrams should be used as a guide to help visualise where all the notes of that group are, in any particular position, so sometimes you’ll see what appears to be a scale starting from a different note. I think it’s a bad idea to learn scales in that way. Always start on the root note because that is your “anchor point”, or in other words your reference note.

If you see a scale that looks like this then when learning and practising, either ignore the notes before the root – or start at the root, work backwards and then forward again through the scale.

This is just for the sake of practise and learning.

In the real world of actually using the scales in music, forget all about starting notes, it just confuses everything.

I won’t go into detail because I have a new tutorial about to be uploaded in the next day or two which will talk about this subject. I’ll update it here when ready.