an old thread but i just wanted to add my two cents worth.
i find it interesting that you explain the patten whole whole half etc, i always learnt it as tone tone semitone tone tone tone semitone. same thing different words. i know that in the US music notation has different names to europe and traditional music language, like quarter note, being a crotchet, as a music educator i find the half not quarter note to be a really good way to teach the idea of note duration, children seem to get confused when you start saying crotchets minims and semibreves, but when you split it into fractions like whole note half note quarter note etc, it is easier for them to understand as they are already learning that stuff in numeracy at school.
scales are a really important to learning an instrument, for a number of reasons, it helps you understand the relationship between keys, also your udnerstanding of harmony and a whole heap of other things, like the modes that were discussed earlier. modes are really interesting, on a technical side they give the player skill in moving around their instrument. when i studied piano i had to learn all major harmonic minor, melodic minor, chromatic scales, and natural minor too, also had to do scales in thirdsand sixths, arpeggios, contrary motion. scales are a very important part to learning an instrument, they are like excercises. that being said i rarely practice scales these days on any of the instruments i play but what i know about them helps me with any instrument i pick up. but mostly it helps with knowing your relationships between scales, like 1 4 and 5 are primary chords, and then you have all the other secondary chords, all that harmony musical theory is really valuable to know, but you need to know yoru scales first to be able to apply all the harmony stuff, like A minor is the relative minor key of C. they are relatives as they share the same key signature which is no sharps or flats, g major has 1 sharp f# and its relative minor key is e Minor as it only has 1 sharp f# but technical it has two because the 7th note is always raised in a harmonic minor scale - (following the pattern tone semitone tone tone semitone tone and a half semitone. e F# g a b c d# e )
and then there are the special chords, the diminished, augmented, Neapolitan sixth and augmented 6th, all that fun stuff, that takes heaps to get your head around. but great for song writing and transpositions, etc
anyway probarly rambled enough about music theory. thanks for the charts btw.