The whole tone scale

Like diminished chords, the whole tone scale is not very widely used, but when you need that specific vibe, nothing else will do. Whole tone scales are easy to understand, because there are only two of them total. Whichever key you are in, there is a whole tone scale that includes the tonic, and another one that doesn’t. I have never seen a useful naming system for these two scales, so I call them yin and yang.

Notice that the notes not found in yin are all the notes in yang, and vice versa. Another fun thing is that when you write the whole tone scales on the circle of fifths, they look exactly the same as they do on the chromatic circle – all the yang scale tones just switch places with their counterparts a tritone away. Symmetry! Continue reading

Modes from light to dark around the chromatic circle

People find the diatonic modes confusing. They are confusing! But they’re also wonderfully useful. So one of the goals of my music theory songs is to make the modes less confusing (or, at least, to make them confusing in a different way.) Some of the confusion comes from the fact that you conventionally see the modes as being generated by the major scale. So, theory texts will tell you that the notes in C major also make D Dorian, E Phrygian, F Lydian, G Mixolydian, A natural minor, and B Locrian. This information is not necessarily helpful to you! It doesn’t tell you anything about how the modes sound, or what you might want to use them for.

I think it’s better to think about the modes in parallel: C major, C Dorian, C Phrygian, C Lydian, C Mixolydian, C natural minor, C Locrian. It’s even more helpful to see them organized in a different order, from “brightest” to “darkest”: C Lydian, C major, C Mixolydian, C Dorian, C natural minor, C Phrygian, C Locrian.

This order makes more sense when you see the modes written on the circle of fifths.

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No, Rolling Stone, D minor is not the saddest of all keys

We all love This Is Spin̈al Tap, but you’re not supposed to take it literally.

Nevertheless, this very silly Rolling Stone article tries to prove Nigel right. The author is a doctoral student in quantitative methods. She should probably have asked a music theorist about this before publishing it, or really any musical person. I won’t go through everything wrong that’s in here, just a few high (low) points.

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So What

If you have never listened to jazz before, Miles Davis’ Kind Of Blue is a great place to start. If you’re an obsessive jazz fan like me, it never gets old. The heart of the album is its first track, “So What.” Even before you press play, there’s a world of meaning in that title. Its cool hostility reminds me more of hip-hop than jazz. It’s no accident that Miles was eager to embrace rap at the end of his life.

Gil Evans wrote the abstract intro section, supposedly inspired by “Voiles” by Debussy, but people don’t usually perform it. The tune proper begins at 0:34.

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Scales, keys and modes on the circle of fifths

If you want to understand Western music theory, the circle of fifths is an invaluable tool. For one thing, it can help you understand how key signatures work. But it also helps explain how the major scale and diatonic modes relate to each other, and gives a possible explanation for why they sound good.

Here’s the C major scale on the circle of fifths:

The purple notes are the ones that form “perfect” intervals above the root C: unison, octave, fourth and fifth. The green notes form major or “natural” intervals above the root. The numbers refer to the scale degrees.

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How do key signatures work?

Most of my students struggle with key signatures. This is understandable! Like the rest of the Western notation system, key signatures are based on a big assumption: that all of the notes will be within one of the twelve major keys, or within some scale that can be derived from a major scale (most often, the natural minor scale). This assumption makes an awkward fit with the music that the kids are making and listening to. Read on!

Several students have asked me if there is some shortcut or mnemonic for memorizing the key signatures. The answer is, yes, there are many, but I’ve never found them to be helpful. The only thing that worked for me was to learn, write and improvise a lot of music in every major and minor key until they were as familiar as the layout of my apartment. My method was slow, but effective.

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Seeing classic beats with the Groove Pizza

We created the Groove Pizza to make it easier to both see and hear rhythms. The next step is to create learning experiences around it. In this post, I’ll use the Pizza to explain the structure of some quintessential funk and hip-hop beats. You can click each one in the Groove Pizza, where you can customize or alter it as you see fit. I’ve also included Noteflight transcriptions of the beats.

The Backbeat Cross

View in Noteflight

This simple pattern is the basis of just about all rock and roll: kicks on beats one and three (north and south), and snares on beats two and four (east and west.) It’s boring, but it’s a solid foundation that you can build more musical-sounding grooves on top of.

The Big Beat

View in Noteflight

This Billy Squier classic is on WhoSampled’s list of most-sampled breakbeats for good reason. There are only two embellishments to the backbeat cross: the snare drum hit to the east is anticipated by a kick a sixteenth note (one slice) earlier, and the kick drum to the south is anticipated by a kick an eighth note (two slices) earlier. It isn’t much, but together with some light swing, it’s enough to make for a compelling rhythm. The groove is interestingly close to being symmetrical on the right side of the circle, and there’s an antisymmetry with the kick-free left side. That balance between symmetry and asymmetry is what makes for satisfying music. Continue reading