Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Lesson-25 : The Major Scales with Sharps - Analysis : Part-3
Hi All,
Maths helps us a lot in analysing and understanding the Music..!
Do you realise that….?
As explained earlier, the addition of black notes ( Sharps) occur in a pattern..! It's a beautiul pattern !
Our series of Major Scale starting from C .. every time jump to the perfect 5th (meaning the 5th or Dominant of the previous Major scale) and make that note as the Tonic or first note of the new Major scale.
Let me summarise the series of Major Scales…
Now, continuing the abvoe series, the perfect 5th of B-Major is F# and hence next scale has to be F# Major and the note that need to be sharpened is E … ie… E#....
Note carefully, E# is not a black note
for all practical purpose that is a white note F….!
But the naming convention makes us to say that as E#...thats all !
Same way, next Major Scale after F#-Major is C# Major and this one will sharp the fifth note B ie B#..which is again not a black note and only the white note…C…
So we have completed one cycle of 7 notes sharpened.
Let me add the above two Major scales in the list…!
Theoretically, let us try one more Major in that sequence… which has to be G# Major…
Now we will land up in F-Double Sharp (F##)..!
If you sharp F two times, you land up in G (which is semi tone below the G# and thus ok.)…!
So the notes are same,,, but expressing is different…
May be slightly (???) confusing in the beginning…but mathematically easy to recognize…!
So you can add the remaining double sharp major scales also… but for the time being we will leave it, as these have not much significance…!
What is important is that we have understood that :
Major Scales starting on different keys can be easily formed based on the simple observations of sequence of notes getting sharpened when proceeded in Perfect 5th….!
That’s all. !
It is important to remember the sequence of Major scales that are coming one after another ….
And at the same time… more important is to remember the notes sharpened in each Major scales..each time..!
The notes getting sharpened in sequence are :
F, C, G, D, A, E, B
(after that …? Easy…..double sharp the letters in the same sequence…)
To remember this, the following sentence may be noted:
Father - Charles - Goes - Down - And - Ends – Battle
Remember this,, you will easily get sequence of sharp notes…of course the corresponding major scale is one letter next to the last sharp…!
Enough for today to assimilate…!
If you want a little bit go further…. You can attempt the following exercises :
1. Using Crotchets, try to write each of the Major scales in a stave ..one octave ascending and then descending… Write the sharp in front of the notes as applicable.
2. Try to play these Major scales one by one on the key board slowly….
3. Try to write yourself any two notes one above another…and check yourself the interval….and name the note as Dominant, Tonic, Mediant etc etc…
4. Whether these two notes are coming in any Major scale ? some time forming part of more than one major scales also ?
5. If more than one major scale, note and name the notes according to that Scale…!
More you go deep, more you understand…the inter relationships….!
Don’t get tensed about the complexity….If you have understood the basics concepts…. You are 90% through…!
All the other things will come …by practice…just sheer practice…..!
As IR says in one of his interview…. "Music Music nu… paithiyamagave aaganum… (You should become mad after music….to achieve this..) “
IF we have luck and divine intervention…. And of course…if we have the TIME…. We can attempt that…!
Maths helps us a lot in analysing and understanding the Music..!
Do you realise that….?
As explained earlier, the addition of black notes ( Sharps) occur in a pattern..! It's a beautiul pattern !
Our series of Major Scale starting from C .. every time jump to the perfect 5th (meaning the 5th or Dominant of the previous Major scale) and make that note as the Tonic or first note of the new Major scale.
Let me summarise the series of Major Scales…
Now, continuing the abvoe series, the perfect 5th of B-Major is F# and hence next scale has to be F# Major and the note that need to be sharpened is E … ie… E#....
Note carefully, E# is not a black note
for all practical purpose that is a white note F….!
But the naming convention makes us to say that as E#...thats all !
Same way, next Major Scale after F#-Major is C# Major and this one will sharp the fifth note B ie B#..which is again not a black note and only the white note…C…
So we have completed one cycle of 7 notes sharpened.
Let me add the above two Major scales in the list…!
Theoretically, let us try one more Major in that sequence… which has to be G# Major…
Now we will land up in F-Double Sharp (F##)..!
If you sharp F two times, you land up in G (which is semi tone below the G# and thus ok.)…!
So the notes are same,,, but expressing is different…
May be slightly (???) confusing in the beginning…but mathematically easy to recognize…!
So you can add the remaining double sharp major scales also… but for the time being we will leave it, as these have not much significance…!
What is important is that we have understood that :
Major Scales starting on different keys can be easily formed based on the simple observations of sequence of notes getting sharpened when proceeded in Perfect 5th….!
That’s all. !
It is important to remember the sequence of Major scales that are coming one after another ….
And at the same time… more important is to remember the notes sharpened in each Major scales..each time..!
The notes getting sharpened in sequence are :
F, C, G, D, A, E, B
(after that …? Easy…..double sharp the letters in the same sequence…)
To remember this, the following sentence may be noted:
Father - Charles - Goes - Down - And - Ends – Battle
Remember this,, you will easily get sequence of sharp notes…of course the corresponding major scale is one letter next to the last sharp…!
Enough for today to assimilate…!
If you want a little bit go further…. You can attempt the following exercises :
1. Using Crotchets, try to write each of the Major scales in a stave ..one octave ascending and then descending… Write the sharp in front of the notes as applicable.
2. Try to play these Major scales one by one on the key board slowly….
3. Try to write yourself any two notes one above another…and check yourself the interval….and name the note as Dominant, Tonic, Mediant etc etc…
4. Whether these two notes are coming in any Major scale ? some time forming part of more than one major scales also ?
5. If more than one major scale, note and name the notes according to that Scale…!
More you go deep, more you understand…the inter relationships….!
Don’t get tensed about the complexity….If you have understood the basics concepts…. You are 90% through…!
All the other things will come …by practice…just sheer practice…..!
As IR says in one of his interview…. "Music Music nu… paithiyamagave aaganum… (You should become mad after music….to achieve this..) “
IF we have luck and divine intervention…. And of course…if we have the TIME…. We can attempt that…!
