Sarvagyajain

Hi All,

I want to know why Major scale has TTSTTTS pattern? What is the basis of this pattern? Why is it better than TSSTTTT or any other combination of tones & semitone?

Regards,

Sarvagya Jain

Mathedes

It sounds nice.

(And the C Major scale on piano is all white keys, which this pattern is derived from.)

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jazz_rock_feel

We all had a meeting about 2 or 3 weeks ago and agreed on what the interval pattern for the major scale was going to be. You shoulda been there, twas a real barn burner.

What an insane statement.

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Ahteh

I think it's pretty safe to say it's the other way around.

cdgraves

because that's the definition of the major scale. You can use any interval patterns you want to make a scale, they just won't be the Major scale.

HotspurJr

There are three huge advantages of the major scale pattern.

First, it provides 7 clear, distinct harmonious relationships with the tonic note, with clear resolution.

Second, it connects each major with a relative minor

Third, it's a pattern that works in all keys.

Before the major scale and "keys" were invented, patterns of notes were used that didn't have that kind of flexibility. Each instrument was set up for a certain pattern, and instruments in different patterns couldn't easily play with each other. The major scale and minor scale (I actually think the major scale is derived from the minor scale, not the other way around, historically) work because of their incredible flexibility and strong sense of resolution.

That being said, diving down the "why is music like this" well tends not to yield satisfactory answers. There's a lot of stuff that is the way it is just because it is that way.

steven seagull

Harmonic series, I *think*

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jazz_rock_feel

I don't think the minor was necessarily derived from the major scale, but the major(ish) scale was definitely around first and is more prevalent in the world. You can pretty simply explain the major scale with the overtone series, you can't do that same with the minor scale (unless you pretend the undertone series is a real thing).

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Hail

it contains the most primitive perfect cadence (I IV V I), an incredibly important example of the tonic->subdominant->dominant relationship that solidifies the tonic and gives credibility to the harmonic sequence. accidentals can go nuts, but the major scale is the "fall-back" for any major key so it's easier to address it as a scale to introduce it to beginners so they don't go accidentally make some atonal shit before understanding cadences, tension, and resolution.

i'd prefer it if we just made atonal shit by default though

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jazz_rock_feel

What a dream world that would be.

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An Afternoon with Stravinsky: Analysis and Observations of the Symphony of Psalms

I finally updated my SoundCloud with more recent pieces. Check it.

Jet Penguin

A major scale is two major tetrachords (TTS) separated by a whole step.

I may be mistaken, but I believe the ancient Greeks used a major tetrachord to tune up, and considered an octave to be two major tetrachords and a whole step apart. (Which it is).

Eventually this would become the basis for harmony in European music.

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Hail

i go to sleep to the soundtrack of begotten

naked

in the middle of a field, in a pentagram of goat's blood and urine

art students, come at me

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jazz_rock_feel

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An Afternoon with Stravinsky: Analysis and Observations of the Symphony of Psalms

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Hail

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Junior#1

Oh Begotten. The film that desensitized me to, well, basically everything.

FYI: don't watch it when you're 8 years old.

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Hail

back in high school my friend told me you could trip on LSA (flower seeds) and he told me to watch it as a joke after i took them thinking i'd have the common sense to look it up before i torrented it. he also thought i wouldn't go buy the seeds, grind them up, and capsule and ingest them.

12 hours later, i had school and refused to come out from under my blanky

if that experience doesn't ruin drug experimentation for a stupid 16 year old...

if i had a dollar for every dumbass thing i did in high school i'd probably be able to afford a future

also: thread successfully derailed

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Sleepy__Head

The Greeks definitely subdivided the octave into 8 tones, but those tones were sometimes quarter tones rather than always being semitones and tones. The WIKI article makes for an interesting read if you're into history of music.

I'm not sure anyone knows for sure how they tuned their instruments, partly because there's very little surviving music, partly because what does survive is written in a kinda, sorta solfege system, and partly because written accounts of music methods usually come with a bucketful of confused and confusing philosphy thrown in.

In general there is nothing stopping you from using other kinds of arrangements of tones and semitones. The harmonic and melodic/jazz minor scales aren't formed from the TTSTTTS interval pattern, for example. You don't even have to divide the octave up into tones and semitones - the harmonic minor has a tone and a half step in it, for example.

I had a bit of a thing for creating these kinds of interval patterns at one time. The only thing I'd say is that I ended up writing using a tone row, or I end up trying to apply abstract musical rules to the interval pattern to give the piece some kind of internal logic. The former approach is easier, the latter quite hard and potentially quite confusing because there are many tonal rules and you end up having to take fairly arbitrary decisions over which ones to use and which ones to ignore. And also the music tends to sound ****ing terrible. But that probably says more about me as a writer than it does of the general approach.

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Sleepy__Head

Cool. Well that gives me something to watch at work tomorrow.

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Hail

i hope you work in a daycare

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