See any scale, hear it, and get its chords
Pick a root and a scale type to see the notes and their degrees, lit up on a keyboard. Then hear the scale played, and get the exact chords it builds, so you can write melodies and progressions that fit together.
Chords in this scale
The chords you can build from these notes, in order. This is your palette for a progression.
How to use it
From picking a key to writing over it, in four steps.
Pick a root and scale
Choose the root note your track is built on, then the scale or mode. The notes appear as pills with their scale degrees, and light up on the keyboard with the root in red.
Hear it
Press Hear the scale to play it up and back down, with each note lighting as it sounds. This is the fastest way to learn the character of a mode, not just read it.
Grab the chords
The Chords in this scale row shows every chord the scale builds. Those are the chords that will sound at home in your key, ready to arrange into a progression.
Learn the degrees, not just the notes
The small number under each note is its scale degree. Learn the blues scale as 1-b3-4-b5-5-b7 and you can build it from any root in your head, instead of memorising twelve separate note sets.
Which scale when
The short, honest version of what each scale is for.
Major and natural minor cover the bulk of Western music. If a track feels bright it is probably major; if it broods it is probably minor or one of its modes.
Pentatonics are the safety scissors of melody: five notes, no semitone clashes, which is exactly why they are the first lead scales everyone learns. Blues adds the b5 to minor pentatonic and instantly sounds like attitude.
The modes are flavours of the same seven-note machinery. Dorian is minor with a brighter 6 (funk and lo-fi), Mixolydian is major with a softened 7 (rock and jam bands), Phrygian brings a b2 darkness (metal, flamenco, trap), Lydian floats on its #4 (film scores and dreamy pads), and Locrian mostly exists so theory teachers have something to apologise for.
Harmonic and melodic minor exist to fix natural minor’s weak pull home. That raised 7th creates the tension and release classical and neo-soul lean on.
Got your scale? Now get a progression.
Pick the same key in the Chord Progression Generator and you will have a progression plus the exact note palette to write melodies over it.
Open the Chord Progression GeneratorMore free tools
The rest of the songwriting kit.
Questions, answered
What scale should I use for my melody?
Match the key of your chords: major key, major scale, or major pentatonic to stay safe; minor key, natural minor or minor pentatonic. Once that is comfortable, swap in a mode for colour. Dorian over a minor groove is the classic first move.
What is the difference between a scale and a key?
A key is the home base of a piece of music; a scale is the set of notes built from that home base. A piece in C major uses the C major scale, but it can borrow notes from outside it too.
What are the chords shown below the keyboard?
They are the diatonic chords, the chords built using only the notes of the scale. They are the ones guaranteed to sound at home in your key, which makes them the natural palette for a progression.
Relative pairs, like C major and A minor, contain identical notes but start from different roots, which changes which note feels like home. Same ingredients, different gravity.
Does this work for guitar as well as keys?
Yes. The note names are instrument-agnostic. The keyboard is just the clearest way to see the intervals; the note pills tell a guitarist everything the diagram tells a pianist.
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