Hot answers tagged scales
37
The major key is present by nature in every note that is played. Therefore, it is interpreted as normal behavior, a happy day in our lives, 'cause that's what we expect to happen.
The minor key is opposed to the major key and it's perceived by us (without being aware) as if there was something wrong, hence sadness or restlessness.
Further explanation:
When ...
31
Do you transcribe other players' solos? I find this helps me a lot, especially when I transcribe non-guitarists' solos. The clichés and idioms on other instruments are simply different than they are on guitar, so that can help to see melody from a different perspective. Trumpets and saxophones, in particular, sit in a similar range to the guitar but have ...
29
They are not quite "universally" regarded as sad. For instance, in the Amazon jungle (particularly the part in Brazil) and some places in the Middle East, people use minor keys for happy songs of rejoicing. Basically, some experts argue it has to do with the qualities of natural speech. Here's an explanation:
...
29
This is a D melodic minor scale (The root of the scale would be D since this Bach), which alters depending on if it is descending or ascending. When ascending the 6 and 7th degrees are raised, and then decending they are lowered. So when descending it is the same as a natural minor scale.
These are pretty common in classic music and are often standard of ...
25
This requires an excursion into musical history.
Originally, instruments were made to simply play notes that sounded "right" together. Why some notes sounded right and others wrong wasn't a great concern for most of humanities history, until Pythagoras, (yes, the guy with the theorem) noticed that it had to do with intervals, and made a music theory based ...
24
First, a key is only really a basis. You can have an F# in a piece written in C Major without having the piece "switch" keys.
Second, keys are defined arbitrarily. Sure there is theory about what sounds good and that sort of thing, but at the end of the day it's just a group of notes that's just as valid as any other group of notes. This is made clear by ...
22
J Roq,
Scales are important for a guitarist, just as learning good grammar is important to speaking properly.
If you are intent on "playing" guitar then learning the language of music is going to be inevitable.
From my own personal and teaching standpoint, guitar music should start with Chords. As opposed to notes. To me they are the most practical form ...
21
To understand the answer to this question you need and understanding of these concepts:
Key center
Tonality
Chord progressions in functional harmony
A song is regarded as being in the key of C major if the pitch C is its key center, if the notes in the song chiefly fall in the C-major scale (as opposed to the C-minor scale, or one of the other ...
16
I think this is a common problem with guitarists, we all at some point or other run across this. Some of the things I have have learned to push past this are as follows.
String skipping
String skipping is a good way to mix up your scale runs, its a good idea to find a pattern you like the sound of and try moving it around, applying this to arpeggios is ...
15
The Super Mario theme song is characterized by mode mixture and syncopated sixteenth note rhythms alternating with eighth note triplets.
Each note duration is very short, and each voice has a different rhythm. When the voices overlap, you hear the combination of all of the rhythms into a more constant stream of impulses. Each impulse has a different ...
15
The 'sus' is short for 'suspended'.
The term comes from traditional music theory, and it refers to that the chord has a note that was suspended, or 'delayed', or 'carried over', from the previous chord. Traditionally the suspended fourth note in the sus4-chord should also be resolved to the third before any further chord action.
Example chord progression ...
15
Max
has been around for 20 years.
Max gives you the parts to create unique sounds, stunning visuals, and engaging interactive media. These parts are called ‘objects’ – visual boxes that contain tiny programs to do something specific. Each object does something different. Some make noises, some make video effects, others just do simple calculations or ...
14
This question on math.se is quite similar to what you're asking and the answers give a lot of detail:
Mathematical difference between white and black notes in a piano?
What's going on here is a massively convenient mathematical coincidence: several of the powers of 2^(1/12) happen to be good approximations to ratios of small integers, and there are ...
14
The convention generally follows that which we see for minor key signatures. There is not a 1 to 1 relationship of key signature to root, rather, the key signature is there to tell us what notes exist in the scale. Then, we use the music itself to figure out where the root is.
If you were writing in D phrygian, for example, would you have two sharps in the ...
14
Memorizing your scales accomplishes at least these four things:
Trains your fingers to play common patterns found in music. There are a lot of scales in music. They're just so satisfying, why not write them?
They can be a controlled environment for practicing other techniques, such as playing fast, playing in octaves, and playing fast in octaves.
It trains ...
14
'Dorian mode on C' does not mean "the Dorian scale that you can find among the notes that are available in the major key of C"!
'Dorian mode on C' refers to the Dorian scale, or set of note intervals, that start on the note C, i.e. C is its root or tonic. This set of notes happens to be the same as the ones found in the Bb major key, thus two flats.
This is ...
12
It partly depends how you read the accidentals at the beginning of each staff, and there are several manuscripts of this treaty and therefore of this Sobria. If one uses the PnD manuscript (from Paris National Library - Ex French Royal Library - Fonds Italien) as you do (I do not have access to something else anyway), and one makes the hypothesis that the ...
12
Two points that may have not been completely answered.
Why is C major the reference scale for natural tones ?
The anglo-saxon notation obscures the history a little. Tradition from church music led in Italy (then shortly after France and Spain) to naming notes of the reference major scale by conventional syllables: Ut Re Mi Fa Sol La Si (this corresponds ...
11
10 Thaats (basic scales) -> Ragas is the Hindustani music concept. In Carnatic Music there are 72 Melamkarthas Ragas yielding thousands of derivative ragas. (I limit my discussion to Carnatic ragas, hoping it'll answer your question)
Raga
At a basic level, each raga is a distinctive kind of melody, having its own flavour. A seasoned listner can detect this ...
11
"Key" implies "tonality." The name of a key corresponds to a pitch class that is considered the "focus" of a key or section.
Is it possible to compose a melody without a key? Of course. That was the whole point of the Second Viennese School. Of course, it is possible not to be tonal (which implies a specific framework of relationships surrounding one ...
11
It sounds to me like you're trying to play with your arm perpendicular to the piano and/or with your wrist parallel. That works fine when you're tucking your thumb under (e.g. RH ascending) but not when going over the thumb (e.g. RH descending). This is because your thumb naturally moves sideways like this, but your fingers are more limited and mostly only ...
11
Well first of all, it's certainly not "C C#..." but
C D♭ E F G A♭ B♭ C
which happen to be exactly the same notes as F harmonic-minor. But this scale beginning from C is called Phrygian dominant scale or in fact Jewish scale.
The other scale
C D♭ E F G A♭ B C
coincides with a "minor Gypsy scale" on F, but probably also has another name that fits ...
11
I'm not sure why you'd have any reason to question why it's real ... it's not really related to G Major though, no more than C# major is related to C Major. It's enharmonically equivalent to A♭ major, just like C# Major = D♭ Major or F# Major = G♭ Major.
As for pieces involving it, Wikipedia mentions some. In general, keys with ...
10
tl;dr The simple answer is "The major scale comes from the overtone series."
I don't know the history, which I suspect goes something like "the major scale is that way because people liked the sound of it." But I do know the mathematics, which may help to explain why people like the sound of it.
Let's start from first principles, many of which you ...
10
There are at least some differences in how they're used.
Natural minor is a kind of default.
In the common practice era a dominant chord usually contains the leading note, which is a semitone below the tonic, because that note has a strong tendency to resolve to the tonic. So, from the harmony point of view, the 7th degree of the natural minor scale should ...
10
Here are two pictures that should explain everything.
To your question, "Also, wouldn't there typically be more notes in between the bass clef and treble clef? Why are they missing in this case?" I should explain that in typesetting sheet music, the amount of space between the treble and bass clef of the piano is variable, but the number of notes ...
9
/sigh, it's the "Jewish Scale." I'm not being racist here, that's actually one of its names.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrygian_dominant_scale
The two songs you referenced actually aren't in the same scale, but they are modes of each other. Avraham Fried was singing in a pretty common harmonic minor scale. (Take a typical minor scale but use the major ...
9
Interesting question, although my answer might be more historical than you'd like ;-)
One answer is that it gives you all the notes of the diatonic scale on the white keys, so by transposing to C major you can play any major-key melody that doesn't modulate using only the white keys.
Another way of saying this: assume that you are working in our musical ...
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