MusicReasonScales, Keys, Intervals, and Notation
What scale degree is this note?
Choose a tonic, a scale, and up to 16 notes. This tool maps each note to its scale degree, including a raised or lowered label for a chromatic alteration, and never silently relabels an enharmonic input as something else.
Answer
Want to learn more? Scales, Modes, and Tonal Centers
Understand
Mapping a note to a degree requires both a tonic and a scale together; the same note can be a plain diatonic degree in one key and a raised or lowered degree in another. A note whose letter does not appear anywhere in the declared scale is reported as outside the scale entirely, rather than forced into the nearest degree by pitch class alone.
Worked example
In D major, F-sharp maps to degree 3 exactly, since F-sharp is D major's own third scale degree. F natural maps to a lowered degree 3 instead, the same letter position but a semitone below what D major's scale calls for.
Method and limitations
The tool builds the declared scale, then matches each input note's letter to a scale degree sharing that letter; the signed semitone difference between the input's pitch class and that degree's own pitch class becomes the alteration label. This tool does not attempt to guess an alternate spelling for a note whose letter has no match in the scale.