[6string]

Why is the major scale the major scale?
I assume its possibly only the major scale of western music.
I assume its the scale or pattern of intervals we use the most.
Does it have to do with the singing voice? The natural intervals it would use if someone was to say to a person, okay sing a note, now sing one higher, and again and another one higher than that, etc,?

[allthumbs]

There is a mathematical formula based on the physics of sound that determines the intervals of tones.
It goes like this
Tone,tone,semitone,tone,tone,tone,semitone . It is those two semi tones that make life interesting. If you write out the key of C. C,D,E,F,G,A,B,C. you find that the formula fits without having to add sharps or flats since the E to the F is a natural semitone as is the B to the C. All the other major scales have to add sharps or flats to make the scale fit where the semitones fall. It is easy to work out. Try it for the key of G since it only has one sharp. G,A,B,C,D,E,F#,G. See how the first semi tone fits B to C since it is a natural semi tone meaning there is no such animal as B# or Cb. The second semitone has to be adjusted since F to G is a whole tone ie F,F#,G and we need a semi tone or half tone to make the formula work ie F# to G. This also solves the problem of the E to F,half tone, being in the wrong place in the formula. The E to F# makes it a whole tone step Sit down with a pen and paper and go through all the keys if you want. It is kind of interesting to work out.
The chromatic scale breaks down the scale into half or semi tones,which are all 12 possible notes in a scale, therefore the chromatic C scale would look like this. C,C#,D,D#,E,F,F#,G,G#,A,A#,B,C. Again, see how the E to F is only a half or semi tone as is the B to C. Take time to work with this and it will become clear. The first time I tried to explain this I made a huge mess of it so this time I checked my notes to be safe. I hope that helps. There is a ton of material on this subject on the net and in books. it is the building block of western music.

[Kirk Lorange]

As allthumbs says, it's pure physics.

Play a harmonic at the 12th fret, which is the halfway point on the string, and you get the same note as the string, up and octave.

Play the harmonic at the 7th fret, which is one third the way up the string, and you get a 5th above that.

Play the harmonic at the 5th fret, which is one quarter the way up the string and you get another root, another octave higher.

Play the harmonic at the 4th fret (harder to do), which is one fifth the way up the string and you get a major third of that strings scale, up a couple of octaves ...

That's a major chord right there: root, major third and fifth ... 1-3-5.

So those natural and perfect fractions -- whole, half, third, quarter, fifth -- yield a major chord.

I'm not sure how it went from there, but obviously if the physics of vibrating strings naturally yield a major chord, the major scale can't be far away.

Any real musicologists out there?

[Sidney Schwartz]

I can't help tossing this into the mix...I find it fascinating. The oldest instrument ever found, a flute that's at least 43,000 years old, plays a diatonic scale. This is obviously something people have known about for a very long time, and I doubt the person who made this flute was a math whiz.

The other really cool thing is that the flute is made out of a cave bear femur. Man, that is one bad-ass flute player.

Here's the link....

http://www.greenwych.ca/fl-compl.htm

Sid

[6string]

Okay maybe I asked the question wrong
Why name the notes A to G
Why not name them A to K, each note being a semi tone.
the intervals stay the same but then there's no sharpes or flats in any of the major scales.

[allthumbs]

I think,after you have been playing longer and noodled with more music theory,you will see that it is a pretty elegant way to describe the workings of an octive. There may be more elegant ways to think about notes,but to date ,they all seem to involve more steps and complications. I remember reading about a guy who used a system involving a colour wheel to describe this stuff. Looked very cool and gave me a pounding headache trying to figure it out.lol

[6string]

No that's not it.

[Kirk Lorange]

I guess there are 7 note names because the structure of music revolves around the 7 intervals of the major scale ... it all comes from those intervals.

Those notes aren't called ABCDEFG in all countries of the World though. I think Germany have an H in there instead of the B ???? I can't quite remember.

[silverbullet5774]

Hey thanks for posting that info on the ancient bone flute thing, thats really neat.

[6string]

Okay I think I found an answer (which I accept for now but we'll see tomorrow )

and I quote


There is another way of looking at the major scale. It is derived from a pattern of four notes called the tetrachord (Greek: tetra = four, chorde = string or note: originally from tetrachordon, an ancient Greek four-stringed instrument). The Greeks applied the term to a falling sequence of four notes with a number of patterns including the interval pattern tone - tone - semitone. Today we use the term to mean a rising sequence of four notes including that using the interval pattern tone - tone - semitone. The word tetrachord can be applied to the interval, a perfect fourth, between the first and last note of the four note sequence as well as to all the notes in the sequence itself.

The C major scale is in fact two tetrachords, one after the other, separated by a tone. Thus:

C - tone - D - tone - E - semitone - F : the first tetrachord
G - tone - A - tone - B - semitone - C : the second tetrachord

The interval between F, the last note of the first tetrachord, and G, the first note of the second tetrachord, is a tone.

What we know of Greek music indicates that the lyre was one of their most important instruments. There is little evidence that it performed a harmonic role; rather, it seems to have been used to play melody. The early lyre had three strings but, by the seventh century BC, a fourth string had been added. The four strings were most probably tuned to the notes of a Dorian tetrachord (intervals: tone, tone, semitone), the four notes encompassing a perfect fourth. Relying on vague, even contradictory evidence, we believe that Pythagoras, or Lichaon of Samos, increased the number of strings to eight, joining two Dorian tetrachords with a tone between them to produce what today we call the major scale (intervals: [tone, tone, semitone], tone, [tone, tone, semitone]), the top and bottom strings being one octave apart. This eight-stringed instrument was called the kithara, from which we get the words 'cittern' and 'guitar'.

[Sidney Schwartz]

All of which eventually produces "Stairway to Heaven". Just what the Greeks had in mind, I'm sure.

Sid

[6string]

Originally Posted by Sidney Schwartz

All of which eventually produces "Stairway to Heaven". Just what the Greeks had in mind, I'm sure.

Sid

Sorry I must have missed that part of the quote when I was copying and pasting

[flakey40]

bloody hell, im not one for the theory of music, and that really gave me a headache. i never did music at school, n it definatly shows!

[Yrkon]

Originally Posted by Kirk

I guess there are 7 note names because the structure of music revolves around the 7 intervals of the major scale ... it all comes from those intervals.

Those notes aren't called ABCDEFG in all countries of the World though. I think Germany have an H in there instead of the B ???? I can't quite remember.

Yes we have an H instead of B

Greetings from Germany *wave*

[6string]

Originally Posted by Yrkon

Yes we have an H instead of B

Greetings from Germany *wave*

Why is that, is it so a B won't get misconstrued as an 8?