David Loberg Code, Western Michigan University
The point of music theory
is to help you understand how music works, so you can be a better player. Playing the notes without understanding
how or why they are put together is like reading a book by sounding out the
words without knowing what they actually mean.
Most of what you need to
know about how pitches are put together you can learn straight from the scales
you play (or are supposed to play) every day. A major scale
has seven different notes arranged in order like going up or down a set of
stairs. If you repeat the first
note when you reach the top there are actually eight notes. The stairs are a little uneven because
they are made up of two different sizes of steps.
C
B B
A A
G G
F F
E E
D D
C C
This is why sometimes you
need a bigger space between some adjacent notes and other times they are close
together. The big steps are
usually called whole steps; and the little ones half steps. All major scales follow the same
pattern of whole and half steps:
whole whole half whole whole whole half_
G A B C D E F# G
D E F# G A B C# D
A B C# D E F#
G#
A
etc
Even though your
fingerings may change for different major scales, the spacing between notes
will always be the same: W-W-H-W-W-W-H
Each step in a scale is
called a scale degree. Scale
degrees can be identified by numbers, solfege syllables, or function names:
1 2 3 4
5 6 7 8
Do Re Mi
Fa So La
Ti Do
Tonic Supertonic Mediant Subdominant Dominant Submediant Leading Tone Tonic