I prefer the quick method shortcut that give you all the possible scales:

The Tetrachords.

Get to know and internalize all possible 4-note groups.

Think in the half-steps, the intervals *between* the notes and not the notes themselves. "Negative logic" as it were.

For example:

1-1-1/2 -- defines the first four notes of the Major Scale.

It also defines the last four notes of the same scale, with only a single whole step in between.

So 1-1-1/2 -- 1 -- and then 1-1-1/2 again is the full Major Scale. Broken down into two identical tetrachords.

C,D,E,F

Now apply all possible iterations of half-steps between those first four notes to derive the only other possible tetrachords, one at a time:

1, !/2, 1 -- defines the first four notes of the Minor Scale.

Putting the above together with the Major Tetrachord place after the Minor Tetrachord yields the Natural minor Scale: 1, 1/2, 1 -- 1 -- 1, 1, 1/2

1, 1/2, 1, 1

1, 1/2, 1, 1/2 -- Hollywood's infamous "Arabian" tetrachord

1, 1, 1 -- Augmented, of course, internalizing the sound of the flat five here.

1, 1, 1/2, 1-1/2

1/2, 1-1/2, 1


Done.

Takes most people only about two weeks at most to "own" them all.

Just practice playing the tetrachords up and down on your instrument until you can sing them all without the instrument being involved. What I call, "ownership" of these intervals. Envisualizing the half step as being farther apart than most do in their heads is a good tip here. Think of the tetrachords as being "spread out" farther and you'll soon nail 'em faster.

The scales, and thus the modes are all built from these basic building blocks.

Within a short time, your ear will take over and you don't have to be concerned with all those categories or lists that would require a spreadsheet and rote memorization of something that has little real value to your composing and playing. Just as our brains are able to compute a ballistic equation that would require the calculus to derive, yet we can look at that waste can and manage to toss a ball into it without really thinking about all that stuff...

Please don't get angry or start those long threads about what you happen to know or not, folks, I ain't kidding about this shortcut, many spend a lifetime without ever taking the simple path to this success. Sometimes I think that teachers are more about having you come back to pay them next week and next year than about teaching someone how to simply Git-R-Done. The same can be said for those who compile and then sell huge books of scales and modes. Or softwares that do the same...


--Mac

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