The Theory Thread

Right, mind if i add me tuppenceworth about scales and that?

CAUTION: LONG READ!!!!!


Startin off with C major: C D E F G A B C

To get a mode of the major scale, use the EXACT same notes, just shift the startin point:



So all the modes of C major are:

C Ionian (Cmajor): C D E F G A B C

D Dorian: D E F G A B C D

E Phrygian: E F G A B C D E

F Lydian: F G A B C D E F

G Mixolydian: G A B C D E F G

A Aeolian(A natural minor): A B C D E F G A

B Locrian: B C D E F G A B



Now minor scales:
So weve started with C major, and got the relative minor (A natural minor, also called A Aeolian) by taking the 6th note of the C major scale, while still using the original notes of the C major scale.

We now have A natural minor, with the notes A B C D E F G A
The chords thereof being EXACTLY the same as the chords of C major, except startin on A minor.

So the chords of the scale of A natural minor are:
A minor, B diminished, C major, D minor, E minor, F major, G major

And heres where we branch off for a moment

***WARNING*** TANGENT:

Right we all know, tho we may not be consciously aware of it, that the chord change of 5-1 in the major scale is there or thereabouts THE most satisfying end to a piece of Western music (read:rock, blues, country etc etc) For this reason, its called a PERFECT CADENCE (a cadence bein the end of a musical section, theme or entire piece).
Play some progression, lets say |C|Am|F G|C|

Sounds end-y doesnt it?

Even more end-y is if ya swap the G in that progression for G7.
God knows how many songs have that, or somethin very similar at the end, and theres a THEORETICAL reason for it, aside from the fact that it just sounds finished.

The reason is that some notes of the chord change G-C are a semitone, or a tone apart, which gives them a sense of wanting to move either up or down that "gap". This effect of wanting to "lean" back to the tonic (in this case the chord of C major) makes our ears expect the next chord to be that tonic, C major. When it turns out to actually be C major, we're satified, content and fulfilled and are happy to just leave it at that. Hence: its a good ending.

To demonstrate these "leans" lets take the notes of the two chords and rearrange them a little:

Gmajor: Cmajor:

G

---

> G
D

---

> E
D

---

> C
B

---

> C

So in actuality, we have TWO "leans": The D sounds like it wants to go down to C, and it does. AND the B wants to move up a semitone to C and it also does.
Also the fact that G stays at G give a fulfilling sound.
To a lesser extent the D moves up to E, though from listening to it yourself, ya can tell that this is a less audible and/or important change.


As for the G7-C cadence:

G7 chord: C chord:
G

---

> G
F

---

> E
D

---

> C
B

---

> C

So we have yet another "lean" from the F, which sounds like it wants to go to the E which it ends up doin.

The gist of that whole tangent is that semitone distances from the chord of the tonic, and the bridging of these "distances" make for a satisfying cadence and/or end to a piece or section, more so than full tone distances.


END OF TANGENT

So after all that, back to minor scales.
All of this theory grew mainly from so-called "classical" music, which was pretty much the only music there was until the 19th or 20th century.
Nowadays monocles will not be dropped into brandy glasses if you and your band of rockers dont end a song on 5-1 (heart shaped box is a great example and notice the way it doesnt sound very "complete" at the end?)
However back in the day, people sough intervals and cadences that let them know the piece was finished.

To this end lets look at the Perfect Cadence of the minor scale:

In our A natural minor scale (remember, A B C D E F G A?) itd be the chord of E G B to A C E, otherwise knows as Em to Am. As you will see, there is ONE, and ONLY ONE semitone gap between the two chords, i.e. B to C, and that is not at the tonic. To classical ears, this does not give a very satifactory final Cadence.
Examining the notes, lets see what we can do about that:

E - E: fine. Remember from the tangent above that G-G worked grand as an ending.

B - C: fine aswell. Again in the G(7) to C above, the more semitones the better.

So were left with G and A in our attempt to make this ending more of a "conclusion"
We cant very well go near A can we? After all, our key is "A"minor, and messing with the A would wreak havoc.
However:

STOP THE PRESSES! Even a rudimentary knowledge of the blues will tell you that if we are playing a 12bar in C (using C, F and G majors), even tho in our scale of C major, the only major with a flattened 7th that fits with the key of C major is the chord of G major, we can still fairly legitimately throw the flattened 7th onto the C major, or F major chords without the sun blowing up.

So it would appear that the seventh note of a scale is manoeuverable to a certain extent.

"Ah-ha!" i hear you say, "while trying to make our Em to Am sound more complete, we were left with A and G, and G is the 7th note of the A natural minor scale!"
Well done, but what can we now do to make it sound more complete, i.e. to try and get a semiton gap between the two, without changing the A?
We can of course make the G sharp. This does not alter our scale dramatically, but it does serve to give us a stronger end on 5-1, giving us two semitone gaps, B to C and now G# to A.

So now our scale is A B C D E F G# A. But what do we call it? Cmaj/A#5? Am#7? NOPE!
We call it the A harmonic minor scale. Remeber harmony is to do with chords and their relation to each other, and we've just changed the scale to make the harmony a bit better (at the end of the piece at least), so thats where the name comes from.


So to summarise our progress so far:

Modes = EXACT same scale (e.g.C major) but shift the starting point.

Perfect cadence = 5-1 (e.g. G to C)

From that we get A Natural minor (A B C D E F G A)

Changing this slightly so that our chords (harmony) will work better we get the scale of A harmonic minor (A B C D E F G# A)

et voila.


Now we move on to another minor scale, which also has its root in the A natural minor scale, which is in turn the Aeolian (6th) mode of the scale of C major scale.

Now i wont go into the details of the origin of this scale (cos i dont know it) but lets just say that another random classical guy though that both the Natural, and Harmonic minor scales werent the May West for writing a decent melody(tune) with. He decides he wants to have the benefit of the top half of the major scale, with the bottom half of the minor scale (mostly because the minor third, in our case C is there and we cant really go changin that.)
So after thinkin about it, he decides to bung and F# and G# onto our Natural minor scale. This gives us the scale of A B C D E F# G# A. Notice that its all but the scale of A major(A B C# D E F# G# A), without the C sharp?

Another thing he decides is that it might sound good, to have the top half of the NATURAL MINOR scale in there too. How about we use the F# and G# when were going UP the scale, and F natural and G natural when were coming DOWN? Sure why the hell not!

This gives us a scale that real theorist might say "has a sharpened 6th and 7th degree when ascending, and follows the key signature when descending"

Which means that, since A minor (of any description) has the same key signature as C major (no sharps or flats), out scale goes like this:

Ascending: A B C D E F# G# A (notice the sharp 6th and 7th)
Descending: A G F E D C B A (no sharps or flats)

Since we altered the Natural minor for the benfit of harmony, and called it the Harmonic Minor, And because we're now altering the scale for the benefit of melody, why not call it the MELODIC MINOR? why not indeed.

A great example of the Melodic Minor scale is in Bach's Bouree in E minor.
Page played a bit of it durin the Heartbreaker solo (at 4:43) in How the West Was Won, Jetro Tull did a flutey version, and Malmsteen himself did it once or twice live.

So well take it in A minor (for simplicity):
Anyway, the first bit of the melody goes like this:

G --2-4-5---4-2-1---2-4

---

1-2

---

D

---

2---4

---

5-3-2---

Which translates to: A B C B A G# A B E F# G# A G F E


And if we take the last two 3 note runs of this: F# G# A and G F E

Now the first one, F# G# A, if you listen to the record is a run from the F# below our tonic (A) up to the tonic: that is it is ASCENDING, and lo and behold what we have said about the Ascending melodic minor scale holds true: The 6th and 7th notes of A minor (F and G) are sharpened.

And the second one: G F E. As per the record, this is a run down from G just below the tonic to E below the tonic. i.e. the scale is DESCENDING, and what we said above still holds true; that the DESCENDING version of the Melodic Minor scale stick to the key signature, in this case no flats and no sharps.


As an aside, the most commonly used minor scale (in any given key) is definitely the Harmonic Minor.
After that it would probably be the Melodic Minor (depending on style of music), and then least common is the Natural minor itself.



So there we have it, about an hours worth of typing which can now be summerised into about three lines.


Starting with key of C major. C D E F G A B C

6th mode (Aeolian mode) = A natural minor: A B C D E F G A

Sharpen the 7th note for HARMONIC MINOR: A B C D E F G# A

Sharpen both the 6th and 7th notes for the ASCENDING version of the melodic minor: A B C D E F# G# A

Stick with key signature for the DESCENDING version of the Melodic minor:
A G F E D C B A


Minor Scales!

Thanks man!

dunno to be honest. I presume so. As in, i know that the Melodic Major (yes major!) is a mode of one of the minor scales (dont ask me which though.)

So to answer your question, id say modes are defined as the exact same notes of any given scale, just starting from different places.


(incidentally do ya know of some place in cabinteely thats puttin on Grease in the first week of october?)

I think it is there yeah.

So do ya have any more theory related questions?

Right thought id say a little bit about Intervals in general.


Lets start off by sayin that an interval is the gap or distance in pitch between two notes. It exists independantly of key signature etc etc, so an F# to Bb interval is an F# to Bb interval regardless of anything else.
It is always measured from the lower note to the higher note.

Interval descriptions contain two things:
1. The number of the interval
2. The quality of the interval

An example is a "major third", "perfect fourth", "diminished 6th" etc.

The "numbers" above are 3rd, 4th and 6th,
and the "qualities" are major, perfect, diminished,



As an example, lets take an easy one. We have two notes, lets say C and E. And we we want to determine the interval between the two of them.
(In this case, we'll call the C the lower note)


1. The number of the interval. The number of the interval is calculated by going back to the very basics of notes.
Take the letters A B C D E F G and use these. Disregard completely any key signature, or accidentals or any of that and use the above list of notes to work out the number of the interval (Note: that is NOT the scale of A natural minor, its just a list of all the notes ever available for us to use within music)

So to get the number of a particular interval, for some reason, they thought it was a good idea to include both notes when counting, so countin up from C to E we get 3 notes: C D E.

Therefore, the interval from C to E is some class of a third.

and indeed the interval from C quadruple sharp to E triple and a half flat is a third of some description.
When trying to work out the number of the interval, disregard any note descriptions (flat, sharp etc) or key signatures, and just take the names of the notes, e.g. C and E, F and G etc.



2. The quality of the interval. What kind of third it is depends....in order for us to determine what type of
interval it is (or the interval quality), we have to think in terms of a major scale with the root being the lowest note (regardless of what key we are in at the moment)

In this case, the root is C, so we build the major scale on top of that:
C D E F G A B C

we then work out whether or not our E note (remember?) fits into this or not. As you can see, it does, hence the C-E interval is called a Major 3rd


If our E not was actually Eb, it would obvoiusly not fit into the major scale of the lowest note. Therefore, the interval of C-Eb is a Minor 3rd.


This is only applicable for certain notes of the scale however.

Below is a diagram about how semitone changes affect different intervals of a scale:



In a major scale, the notes that have perfect intervals from the tonic are always always always going to be: Unison/Octave (ie. the tonic), the 4th and the 5th.

The rest of the notes are obviously going to be Major intervals (i.e. 2nd, 3rd 6th and 7th notes.)

With a fundamental knowledge of major scales, we can read these off fairly routinely; e.g. if someone asks us what the interval from C to G is, we can quickly see that G is the fifth note of the scale of C major, and is indeed in the scale of C major, therefore the interval itself is a Perfect 5th.


The trouble arises when the higher note of the two is not found in the major scale of the lower note.


Now for an example
Lets take, for example, the notes C and Gb.
This could be any scale, any mode etc. (That is to say that the intervals of notes exist outside of concerns about key signatures etc).


And imagine that we are trying to work out the interval between the two.
Also imagine that Gb is the lower of the two notes (for fun!)

1. First of all lets get the Number of the interval:
Disregarding accidentals etc, we have G and C.
G A B C....which means that we're dealing with some class of a Fourth.

2. Now let's build a major scale from Gb upwards:
Gb Ab Bb Cb Db Eb F Gb

and wonder to ourselves "does the C note fit neatly into that?"...and of course it doesnt. We now think in terms of "what kind of a C notes does actually fit into the major scale of Gb?" and it'd be Cb of course.

So from the diagram above, the interval between Gb and Cb, both contained in the major scale of the lower (Gb) would be a perfect fourth.

BUT!! We dont have a Cb. Rather we have a C natural. In effect we are increasing the interval by a semitone, and from the diagram, what do we get if our interval is one semitone bigger than would otherwise be the case with a perfect fouth? As you can see its an Augmented Fourth


So to summarise:

1. Intervals are the difference in pitch between two notes.
2. They are measured from the lower note, to the higher note.
3. They exist outside of any concerns about key signatures.
4. They have both a number and a quality (e.g a 3rd that is major is called a major third)
5. To get the number, simply take the two note letters D, F , B etc and count up from the lower to the higher (including both in your count)
6. To get the quality, build a major scale on the lower notes, and see if the higher notes fits into this. i. and you have determined it is either an octave, 4th or 5th away from the lower notes, then its a Perfect interval.
ii. if the higher note fits into the major scale, but is not either a octave, 4th or 5th, then it is a Major interval.
then you have to consider what quality the interval would have had, if the note was in the major scale (such as the Gb C example above), and whether the note you actually have has made the interval bigger or smaller.

Consult the diagram thing above to figure out what effect making the interval bigger or smaller by a semitone has on your interval quality.

7. String the number and quality together, e.g (major 6th) and youre laughin!



Hope that helps, it was hard enough to explain, but its a start anyway!

I don't think this has been addressed... does anyone know a link for a decent guide to reading basic sheet music? I'm kinda startin down that road to improve my game, but my google powers failed me, alas.:o