Music Theory Recap
What is a key?
The key is the scale that the music piece revolves around whether major or minor.
What is a scale?
A scale is a set of musical notes ordered by pitch.
What is an interval?
It is the gap in pitch between two notes. It can be either harmonic or melodic. Harmonic intervals are found in chords when two notes are played at the same time meanwhile melodic intervals are found when playing a sequence of notes, one at a time, also known as a melody.
What is a tone?
A tone is intervals in a scale. On a piano, a tone is the interval between two white keys separated by a black key. It is two frets, and two semitones are equal to one tone.
What is a semitone?
Also known as a half step, semitone is the shortest amount of pitch you can have in western music. One fret to the next. A semi tone is half a tone.
How do we use intervals to make a scale?
The starting note becomes known as the root note. To make a major scale in any key, you can use a simple formula. You go up a tone, then another tone, then a semitone. Next you go up a tone, then another tone and then another tone before you finally go up one last semitone. T T S T T T S. For example, for the C major scale you would use the notes C (t) D (t) E (s) F (t) G (t) A (t) B (s) C.
Another example would be the A major scale. You would use the notes A (t) B (t) C# (s) D (t) E (t) F# (t) G# (s) A
What is a triad?
They are three notes that make up a chord. They are three notes that are stacked in thirds to create a chord. A triad is very common in western music.
Which three notes are used to make a major chord?
The notes used are called the root, third and fifth notes. A major chord is built with a major third and a perfect fifth from the root. For example, a triad chord for C would be C E G (C D E F G A B C).
A = A C E (Minor)
B = B D F (Diminished)
C = C E G (Major)
D = D F A (Minor)
E = E G B (Minor)
F = F A C (Major)
G = G B D (Major)
