C Natural Minor Scale on Viola

Play the C Natural Minor scale on Viola with fingerboard diagrams that map the pattern across the neck. The Natural Minor scale has 7 notes per octave and belongs to the common family.

C is available as an open string on Viola, and 3 of its 4 open strings are scale tones — C (the root), G (the 5th), D (the 2nd). The A string sits outside the scale. Open, the strings cover C3 to A4.

It is also known as the Aeolian scale.

The standard natural minor scale — melancholic, introspective, and deeply emotive. The most common minor sound in Western music.

Heard in: Pop, rock, classical, metal — the default minor sound of Western music.

Viola is bowed, with a bare fingerboard and no fixed stops, so this is really a double-stop study: two strings at a time speak cleanly, and the full stack is rolled rather than sounded at once.

Each position shows the scale notes and their intervals from the root so you can connect the shape to its sound, hear it with audio playback, and practice it in any register. Movable patterns let you transpose the same fingering to other keys once it is learned.

Once a position is under your fingers, link the C Natural Minor scale to the chords it harmonizes and to progressions in the key of C to start improvising and writing with it. Working a scale alongside its chords is the fastest way to make it stick and to hear how it colors a progression.