If we are to play each note available to us on any Western instrument in an ascending or descending order, then each note will be one half step away from the next. Everything will also be played in open position which refers to the first 3 frets, so it is vital that we have an understanding of our chords and scale in this position.Ī major scale is made up of a pattern of intervals, steps and half steps (also called tones and semitones outside the U.S.). In this course, we are only going to be playing diatonic arrangements, this means that all the notes we will use will be either C, D, E, F, G, A, or B. Some of you may be reading this article as part of our Guitar Solo Style Course. If I were to play a note outside the key, say a G#, it would be called non-diatonic-meaning that the note is not diatonic, or does not belong, to the key of C major.
The intervals between these notes work together to create a key. If all of the your favorite pop songs were played in the key of C major, chances are they only use these 7 notes, whether it is in the melody, the chords, or the bassline. The key of C contains 7 notes: C, D, E, F, G, A, B we can mix up these notes to play melodies. In addition to having no sharps or flats to think about, it also contains all the open notes of a guitar, so we can use this to our advantage. But if we are to approach the guitar in a theoretical way, it really is best to start with C major. In relation to the piano, this scale is played on white keys only, which makes the scale visually more approachable.Ĭ major on the guitar is not always the first scale we learn, some often learn G or D. Each piece of Western music can be transposed into 12 different keys, so it makes sense to learn each key centre thoroughly.Ĭ major is the simplest as it contains no sharps or flats. Middle C is C4 and the tuning note played in orchestras is A4.We hear music in keys. The tuning of open strings for an electric guitar (or classical guitar) is E2 (82 Hz), A2 (110 Hz), D3 (147 Hz), G3 (196 Hz), and E4 (330 Hz), though the music is notated two octaves higher than it sounds (for readability). With the note A4 defined at 440 Hz, the entire equal tempered chromatic scale can be shown to be (from Rossing's "The Science of Sound"): so a fifth is 1.05946 to the 7th power (seven semitones in a musical fifth) or 1.498 (slightly flatter than 3/2). The "equal-tempered" scale has each semitone equal to a ratio of the twelfth root of 2, or 1.05946. The most famous of these is to spread the Pythagorean comma evenly around all 12 intervals in the chromatic scale in equal proportions, effectively making every interval just slightly sour but none worse than any other. There are various schemes to adjust certain intervals slightly to make the Pythagorean scale sound closer to the "just" scale these form the basis of various "meantone" tuning schemes. As with "just intonation," Pythagorean tuning sounds pretty good near the home key but the 3rds sound slightly too high or low and get worse the farther the key moves from home. Starting on the home key tonic note (e.g., C), and going around the circle of fifths (transposing octaves where necessary), one finds that one does not return to the original note, but misses it by an amount known as the "Pythagorean comma" (equal to the ratio 1.0136). One solution is to maximize the number of truly perfect 5ths (3:2 ratios) doing so leads to the Pythagorean scale. You should know that choruses sing in "just intonation" in whatever home key they are currently singing. Moreover, as chords are played that add flats and sharps, the keys farthest from the home key sound more and more out of tune. This sounds great for pieces in the key of C (or whatever note the scale is built upon) but the fifth between D and A is not in the ratio 3:2, and so sounds a bit sour (e.g., beats are produced). Thus, for example, C-major would be rendered as To assemble the just scale, note that the root major triad has frequencies in the ratios 1: 5/4 : 3/2, as are those of the dominant chord built on the 5th of the scale and the subdominant chord built on the 4th of the scale. "Just" Intonation refers to simple low-integer-ratio frequency ratios developed by the Ancient Greeks: Several of you have asked for a brief summary of musical scales and their construction. Musical Scales and Frequencies Musical Scales and Frequencies
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