Why C Major and D Major has different structure?

Question

According to this resource http://www.theguitarwoodshed.com/scales-list
C Major is [ C D E F G A B C ] and D Major is [ D E F# G A B C C# ].

Why D Major ends with C# but not D?

Structure of C Major is (1,1,1/2,1,1,1,1/2), where 1 is tone and 1/2 is semitone.
And structure of D Major is (1,1,1/2,1,1,1/2,1/2) with two semitones in a row at the end.

I would expect [ D E F# G A B C# D ] as D Major, why it's different?

Answer 1

Mainly because it's quite amateur! The D? It's just been left out!

I say quite amateur looking at the scale chart. D#, while it is a key/scale, is far more commonly known as, and written as Eb. The same goes for G#, which is better known as Ab.

Further down the list, there are glaring errors, with not a flat in sight. (Guitarists do use flats as well as sharps!), for instance, no scale should have two different notes with the same letter name - in G minor, the A# ought to be Bb.There are two blues scales, with flat fives, not #4s. There are two diminished - half/whole and whole/half. There should be two pents. I could go on...

I will. The whole tone C# ends on C. Impossible! I gave up after finding dozens of mistakes, but it goes to prove what I keep saying: just because it's on the 'net out there for the world and his dog to see does not give it any credence. And this seems to prove that in buckets!

Answer 2

The errors in the web page have already been covered by Tim. I'll make some suggestions about what you should look for in a better resources. You want more information about scales than just the spelling of the notes. Look for resources that include things like...

• relative intervals of whole/half steps within the scales, some scales also have larger intervals like minor thirds or augmented seconds
• scale degree names: tonic, supertonic, mediant, etc
• permutations (modes) of a scale, ex. dorian mode is the second mode of the major scales, altered scale is the 7th mode of the melodic minor scale, etc.
• various position on the guitar neck,
• tonic note (starting note) located on the various strings
• note spellings of the scale and associated key signature, you should understand things like E flat major is the common spelling rather than D# major

Basically, you don't want to memorize every scale spelling, you want to learn the relative relationships of the notes in the scale. You want the musical structure of the scale. Chances are when you find resources that provide all these important theory elements the resource will probably be free of errors.

You will most likely end up using several resources with different focuses. Here are a few example charts:

Also, tutorial style pages are good. Just look for similar theory information in the tutorials.

http://www.guitarorb.com/guitar-scales/