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In music theory, the key of a piece is the group of pitches, or scale, that forms the basis of a musical composition in Western classical music, art music, and pop music. Tonality (from "Tonic") or key: Music which uses the notes of a particular scale is said to be "in the key of" that scale or in the tonality of that scale. [1]
List of musical scales and modes Name Image Sound Degrees Intervals Integer notation # of pitch classes Lower tetrachord Upper tetrachord Use of key signature usual or unusual 15 equal temperament: 15-tet scale on C. Play ⓘ — — — 15 — — — 16 equal temperament: 16-tet scale on C. Play ⓘ — — — 16 — — 17 equal temperament ...
Some scales use a different number of pitches. A common scale in Eastern music is the pentatonic scale, which consists of five notes that span an octave. For example, in the Chinese culture, the pentatonic scale is usually used for folk music and consists of C, D, E, G and A, commonly known as gong, shang, jue, chi and yu. [14] [15]
Klezmer music uses scales other than diatonic major or minor, such as Phrygian dominant scale. Because of the limitations of the Great Highland Bagpipe scale, key signatures are often omitted from written pipe music, which otherwise would be written with two sharps, F ♯ and C ♯. [12]
The hallmark that distinguishes major keys from minor is whether the third scale degree is major or minor. Major and minor keys are based on the corresponding scales, and the tonic triad of those keys consist of the corresponding chords; however, a major key can encompass minor chords based on other roots, and vice versa.
Moreover, the key signature of the piece of music (or section) will generally reflect the accidentals in the corresponding major scale. For instance, if a piece of music is in E ♭ major, then the seven pitches in the E ♭ major scale (E ♭ , F, G, A ♭ , B ♭ , C and D) are considered diatonic pitches, and the other five pitches (E ...
The universal key or universal scale is a concept employed in music theory in which specific notes or chord symbols in a key signature are replaced with numbers or Roman numerals, so that the relationships between notes or chords can be universally applied to any key signature.
Its key signature has three sharps. Its relative minor is F-sharp minor and its parallel minor is A minor. The key of A major is the only key where the Neapolitan sixth chord on (i.e. the flattened supertonic) requires both a flat and a natural accidental. The A major scale is: