My simple way to remember Major and Minor scales
Coming back to piano after a 15 year gap and relearning scales from scratch. My teacher had me memorizing the whole W W H W W W H pattern and honestly it never stuck cleanly in my head. Then it clicked when I stopped thinking in steps and started counting the notes instead.
Major scale: 1-2-3, half step, 1-2-3, half step
That's it. Play three notes, half step, three notes, half step. Done.
Minor scale: 1-2, half step, 1-2, half step, 1-2
Two notes, half step, two notes, half step, two notes. Done.
Pick any starting note and these patterns build the scale perfectly every time. No need to memorize a string of Ws and Hs.
The reason this works is you're just counting how many notes land between each half step. Major has groups of 3, minor has groups of 2. That's the entire difference between a happy sounding scale and a dark sounding one.
Hope this helps someone else who struggled with the traditional way of learning it. Sometimes the simplest framing is the one that sticks.