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Week 2B

· Read 2/24/21

  • Bonus question to think about: If all relative intervals are the same, why do keys matter? Why not just write everything in C major?
  • "Vulfpeck" by Cory Wong raises assumptions about do we always need a melody that's in the higher range
  • Nathan felt like he didn't know much about music despite having a degree in clarinet. What's the structure that binds notes together? What makes them interesting?
  • Recent research paper models key changes and melodic changes within them; reveals constraints composer were implicitly/explicitly working with
  • Time and pitch multiplication/augmentation
  • Started building own flutes during pandemic

Scales

  • Wouldn't be a bad idea to memorize circle of 5ths, practice drawing from scratch
  • Major tonic, with minor tonic a third below
  • Seth Monahan Lesson 1: Major Scales

    • Major scale: WWHWWWWH, where W = whole step (2 semitones), H = half step (1 semitone)
    • Scale degrees: 1-7 with carat on top
    • Functional names: Tonic, supertonic, mediant, subdominant, dominant, submediant, leading tone, tonic
    • To build other major scales, just start the pattern on a new note
    • Memorize all major scales ASAP. Easier way: key signatures
  • Lesson 2: Key Signatures

    • Tells you 1) what notes are modified by accidentals, 2) what notes are in the scale named after that key
    • Use circle of fifths to memorize key signatures
    • Series of all 12 notes, separated by perfect fifths (7 semitones)
    • Overlap at bottom of "enharmonic" pitches
    • Tells us how many accidentals are in each key and which ones they are
    • Sharped notes, moving clockwise: F C G D A E B
    • Flattened notes, moving counterclockwise: B E A D G C F
    • Every major key shares a key signature with its relative minor (minor 3rd below relative major)
    • Minor keys always use additional accidentals, i.e. ones not accounted for in the key signature, so we end up with three different minor scales
  • Lesson 3: Minor Scales

    • "Natural" minor: W H W W H W W (half steps between 2-3 and 5-6)
    • Same functional names except ^7 is called subtonic, not leading tone
    • "Harmonic" minor: Raise subtonic to leading tone
    • Composers for film often use natural minor to create exotic, pre-modern sound (it doesn't sound like Hadyn, Mozart, etc)
    • Augmented 2nd ^6-^7 regarded as ugly, unsingable in Renaissance/Baroque Europe
    • "Melodic" minor: raise scale degree ^6 too, W H W W W W H, but when you go down ^6 and ^7 are lowered
    • Among the major and 3 minor scales, only scale degrees ^3, ^6, and ^7 are variable
    • 19th century composers like Schubert and Mahler intermingle parallel major and minor bar by bar, even note by note
    • Study of scales is measuring small distances between notes: half step, whole step, augmented 2nd
    • To measure any distance precisely, we'll look at intervals

Intervals

  • Seth Monahan video, Lesson 4: Intervals
  • How intervals unfold in time

    • Melodic (linear): two notes sounded in succession
    • Harmonic (vertical): two notes sounded together
  • Simple: octave or smaller
  • Compound: larger than an octave; can think of as simple plus 1/+ octaves
  • Generic and specific size

    • Generic: number of slots on staff that the interval spans (unison, second, third, ..., seventh, octave)
    • Generic not affected by change of clef or any accidentals, however wacky
    • Specific: diminished, minor, perfect, major, augmented
    • No generic size takes all five names
    • Two broad families

      • Unisons, 4ths, 5ths, octaves: dim, perf, aug
      • 2nds, 3rds, 6ths, 7ths: dim, min, maj, aug
  • Determining sizes

    • One way is to count semitones
    • Scales
    • Family 1: Does the top note in the interval appear in the major and minor scales of the lower one? If yes, then perfect

      • Speed tip: If the notes of a 4th or 5th have matched accidentals, then the interval is perfect... unless the two notes are B and F
    • Family 2 (except 2nds): Ask same question. If it's in major scale, it's major. If it's in the minor scale, it's minor.
  • Inverting intervals: put bottom note on top or vice versa

    • Inverting again brings us back to where we started
    • Specific size rules

      • Augmented <> diminished
      • Major <> minor
      • Perfect <> perfect
    • Generic sizes: add to 9

      • Unison <> octave
      • 2nd <> 7th
      • 3rd <> 6th
      • 4th <> 5th
  • We've only dealt with 2 notes at once, but real music often has 3 or more notes at once, aka chords. We'll start with the most common chord in Western music: the triad

Sightsinging Lab 2/26/21