Music theory reference chart
Intervals, scales, chords, and modes
After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is Music.
— Aldous Huxley
Music theory does not tell you what to do. It allows you to describe what you've done. That's my hot take.
This single-page reference chart is a compact resource that allows you to answer common questions about intervals, scales, chords and modes.
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Version 1.2.2 (3 Feb 2005) | Download: PDF (US letter) / PNG (600 dpi) | Have a suggestion or see an inconsistency or error? Email me.
This chart presents a lot of information on a single page. If you already know music theory, then its design will be familiar. If not, then use the guide below to some common questions that the chart can answer.
Intervals are the distance between two notes. They can be referred to by their size in semitones (e.g. C-G is 7 semitones) or common name (e.g. C-G is a perfect fifth). The semitone is called a half-step (H) and two semitones is a whole step (W).
The chart expresses the name of the interval as the corresponding number. For example, fifth is shown as 5, seventh as 7, and so on.
Minor intervals are preceeded by ♭. For example, a minor third appears as ♭3.
The tritone (6 semitones) is shown as #4. This interval is called the augmented fourth or diminished fifth. Here diminished refers to the fact that the interval is formed from two minor thirds.
At the top of the chart, you see the semitone size and name of the interval for two octaves. For example, one octave above a fifth sits the twelfth, which is 19 semitones from the root.
Chords with "addX" in their name add the Xth interval. This part of the chart lets you quickly figure out what the X is. For example, CMadd9 contains the ninth, which is 14 semitones above the root. Two other common intervals added to chords are the eleventh (17 semitones) and the thirteenth (21 semitones).
At the bottom of the chart, the intervals are inverted (i.e. they run backwards). Use this section of the chart to relate intervals to their inverted counterparts.
For example, if we go down a fifth (7 semitones) from the root (e.g. from C4 to F3), then we will be a fourth (5 semitones) above C3 (e.g. from C3 to F3 is a fourth).
A mode is an instance of a scale that starts on a different letter. Historically, the 7 modes of the C major scale (as it is known today) were some of the earliest scales that These modes have their own names: Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian. Over time, the Ionian and Aeolian modes saw more and more use and became what we call the major and minor scales today.
You'll see that the chart shows the modes of the major scale first, which are then followed by some more exotic scales (which themselves might be modes of another scale, such as the Lydian augmented scale, which is the third mode of the ascending melodic minor scale. The reason for this decision is that (a) the major scale naturally comes first (its line is drawn thicker), (b) modes are used a lot and (c) you can now see the pattern of change in the chord progression between modes (as you go up a mode, the progression shifts down by one).
The notes in this mode are shown as circles on a line, with each note placed within its corresponding interval from the root. Thirds (orange), fifths (blue) and sevenths (yellow) are highlighted and the note circles in these intervals are shown with a different stroke (e.g. a third has a thick stroke, a fifth is solid, and a seventh a medium-sized stroke). The second and sixth interval (both brown) have circles with thin strokes. If you're affected by color blindness, you will be able to distinguish the fifth from the third and seventh.
If we start the C major scale on the D, we get the second mode, which is Dorian. The difference between the Dorian and Ionian mode is shown beside the mode's label. In this case, we can see that Dorian has a ♭3 and ♭7. In other words, the third and seventh notes of the Dorian mode are a semitone lower than their counterparts in Ionian.
The Aeolian mode (6th mode of the major scale) is the minor scale, which has ♭3, ♭6 and ♭7.
To determine the notes in a mode, you first find your mode (e.g. Locrian, considered the darkest mode) and then the row of notes at the bottom of the chart that starts with your desired root (tonic) note (e.g. B♭). Then, you read off the notes under the circles: B♭-B-D♭-E♭-E-G♭-A♭.
When listing the notes in a mode (or scale), it's customary to not use the same base note name twice. We'd use the enharmonic equivalence (any given note can be notated in multiple ways) and write B♭ as A#, D♭ as C#, E♭ as D#. The final note sequence would be A#-B-D♭-D#-E-G♭-A♭.
Below the modes (which themselves are scales) are a few other scales (e.g. Lydian dominant) and their alternate names (e.g. acoustic). These scales aren't common but they do see use.
There are many other scales but the chart is limited to a page. I'm sorry if your favourite scale isn't shown.
Scales are sometimes expressed as the sequence of intervals (half step or whole step) between adjacent notes. For example, the major scale is W-W-H-W-W-W-H. The chart does not show this, but you can quickly read off these distances by looking at the distance between the circles.
Looking up notes in a scale is the same process as looking up notes in a mode: line up the scale note circles with the row of notes that starts with the root.
Relative keys are the major and minor scales that have the same key signature (they use the same notes).
If you take the C major scale C-D-E-F-G-A-B and start it on its sixth note, you get A-B-C-D-E-F-G. This is the A minor scale and it is the so-called "relative minor" of the C major scale because it was constructed with the same notes.
This works for any major scale: the sixth note in the scale is the root of its relative minor (e.g. the relative minor of D major is B minor). I've placed a dotted line to cue this. The dotted line appears in the the column for the sixth interval, because the sixth note of the major scale is a sixth from the root.
Similarly, the third note of a minor scale gives you the relative major (e.g. the relative major of D minor is G♭ major). A solid line in the ♭3 interval column indicates this, because the third note of the minor scale is a ♭3 from the root.
The Circle of Fifths is a very helpful visualization in music theory. Shows the key signatures of relative key pairs, organized clockwise in increasing fifths and counterclockwise by decreasing fifths. The circle can be used to figure out which notes are sharp (or flat) in the corresponding key signature.
The chart doesn't show a circle, but you can step along in fifths from note to note. Start at C, then go up a fifth to G (blue column). This is the next step in the circle. To continue, go to the row that starts with G and go up a fifth to D). And so on.
To help you jump by more than one step, the number of steps clockwise and counterclockwise is shown in black and white numbers above the notes, respectively. For example, to jump 3 steps clockwise from C you look at the note below the ❸, which is A. To go 3 steps counterclockwise from C you look at the note below the ③, which is E♭. To find the note on the opposite side of the circle use ❻⑥. Opposite to C is G♭.
The chord section shows the notes for common chords. A basic chord is made out of three notes (triad) and the chart shows these along with the seventh. Technically, what are shown are so-called seventh chords.
I show the seventh because some chords are distinguished by the position of their seventh. For example, the minor-major (mM) chord is a major chord with a ♭7.
To get the notes for a chord, follow the same process as for notes in a scale — line up the circles with the notes from the row that start with the chord's root.
For example, an F minor-major chord is F-A♭-C-E. As I mentioned, all the chord notes include the seventh, so technically this is an F minor-major seventh chord. It can be written as FmM7.
As you're no doubt aware, chord notation there are many ways to denote a chord. The richness (mess) of notation and names in music theory have historical reasons (baggage).
For example, a major chord can be written as C, CM, Cmaj, or CΔ. Sometimes parts of the name is superscripted and sometimes not. In the chart I've tried to use the shortest unambiguous name. For example, I use 7♭5 for a dominant 7th chord with a ♭5. A dominant chord itself can be written as C7, CMm7, CΔm7, Cmaj♭7 or Cmajm7 (there are probably other ways too).
For each scale, the chord progression is shown below the scale's notes.
For example, the chord progression for Locrian is ∅-M-m-m-M-7-m. This can be written as i∅-II-iii-iv-M-VI7-m. In this notation, major (minor) chords are written with lowercase (uppercase) Roman numerals.
To find the fourth chord in B♭ Locrian, find the note (E♭) and chord quality (m) under the fourth note. Now, look up the E♭ minor chord using the same steps as listed above.
You'll often see the diminished (e.g. Aeolian has iio) chord referenced in a chord progression. On the chart, I use the half-diminished symbol (e.g. Aeolian has ii∅). If you don't include the seventh, these chords are identical. If you do include the seventh, then they're not: the diminished seventh chord (e.g. iio) is the half-diminished seventh chord (e.g. ii∅) with its seventh flattened (i.e. ii∅♭7). It's important to note that the ♭7 in this notation is relative to the half-diminished chord and not the major scale.
Someone on the Reddit thread about this chart asked for solfege notes. So here they are — for sharps, naturals and flats.
For some questions, the chart shows the answer explicitly. For example, you directly look up the intervals in a scale.
For other questions, you have to do a bit of work. For example, to find the notes in a chord you need to line up the chord definition with the line of notes for a given root.
One thing that the chart doesn't explicitly show is which notes are sharp (or flat) for a given key signature. The Circle of Fifths visualization usually shows this and this is one of the reasons it so useful. I could not find a tidy way to add this information into the chart, without either adding sharps and flats to some notes in the note table (which would make things busy) or listing them beside each row of notes (which would make things cluttered).
You can already count how many sharps (or flats) are in a major (or minor) scale using the black (or white) numbers at the top of the C row in the note table. The number directly gives the number of sharps (or flats). For example, the ❹ above the E tells you that E major has 4 sharps. To look up which notes are sharp, find the notes in the E major scale (as described in the notes in a mode section) and then see which ones are sharp.
1.2.2 — added missing ♭2 to label of Phrygian mode. Added Lydian augmented (#4#5, third mode of ascending melodic) scale. Added "Jazz minor" as alternate label for ascending melodic minor scale. Added relative major and minor indicators above the list of notes. Added distance along circle of fifths above notes (black clockwise, white counterclockwise).
The chart uses a combination of Academico and Norfolk fonts. The Norfolk family of fonts is a derivative of Bravura that is expressly reconfigured to work within Sibelius. Bravura is the first SMuFL-compliant music font family, designed by Daniel Spreadbury at Steinberg for Dorico, its scoring application. Chart title, credit and version are set in Futura.