oh, wait, I get it. how does Merman use 6 points to indicate 7 offsets.
yeah - how do you do that. 
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Wrist, thumb, four fingers, wrist again. And a semitone between the index and middle.
TBH it’s just easier to remember TTSTTTS. Or 2131.
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Sorry for any confusion. In the Practical Music Theory lesson 3.10 Justin suggests using your hand as a tool to identify all natural/sharp or flat notes in a major scale and I posted my answer to that lesson… it pinged up here slightly out of context. Justin used 1) Root = base of thumb, 2) ii = thumb 3) iii = gap between thumb and finger 4) IV = index tip, 5) V = middle tip 6) vi= ring tip, 7) vii = little finger tip, 8) Root/octave = wrist by little finger. Using the tone -semitone pattern of Major Scale TTSTTTS, you can start at any root note, say G, and get the full run, GABCDEF#G. Sure memorising TTSTTTS is great, but I liked Justin’s hand trick, and found it clearer with all Tones at fingertips. Base of thumb, up T to thumb, up T to index, up S to base of index-middle, up T to middle, up to T ring, up T to little, and up S to base of little. Whatever gets you through the night hey?!
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Ah, now I get it. I’ve already known the major scale formula, but this mnemonic was a little strange at first. But that may be just me, I had a harder time trying to make up a mnemonic for the 6 open string note names than learning the notes names only.
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Hi guys (and girls). I nailed the major scale exercise without a problem, but at the moment I find it easier (for me) to scribble down the major scale worksheet with intervals from memory. After that I fill in the blanks as Justin suggested. I will use Mr Cato’s technique in time, but for now writing things down works so much better for me. To memorise the key signatures, I’m using “GDAEBFC” (Good Day And Every Body Feel Cool - where F and C are sharps) and “FBEADGC” (Fat Boys Eat And Drink Green Cider" - for flats, except for the F). It may seem strange to other people, but it works quite well for me!
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Hey Shane,
Sounds good to me mate; and its working for you. And the more you write it down, the less you’ll need to; but it takes time.
I’ve utilised much the same method over the last few years of theory study and application. Overwhelming at first, but progressively it all starts to gel.
Eventually, it becomes like an internalised ‘image-matrix’ in the mind, that can be cross-referenced on the fly. I now ‘see’ it all as 2 literal images on my mind, as follows;
G,D,A,E,B,F#,C# (Keys)
F#,C#,G#,D#,A#,E#,B# (Notes)
F,Bb,Eb,Ab,Db,Gb,Cb (Keys)
Bb,Eb,Ab,Db,Gb,Cb,Fb (Notes)
Looks ‘messier’ when written down here. The actual internalised image is much cleaner, with #s, bs etc, implicit. And the more popular keys just become automatic.
Cheers, Shane