QEGS Music Department
Tonality: The key of a piece of music. Tonality is created by using the notes of different types of scale.
Tonality
Key Signatures
Key signatures are the sharps and flats at the beginning of a piece of music. To save time writing lots of accidentals, any sharps or flats in the key signature last for the entire piece unless the composer tells you otherwise. Counting the number of sharps or flats in the key signature can tell us the tonality of the piece of music.
Major
Generally used for happy, calm, uplifting or heroic music. Has semitones between notes 3-4 and 7-8.
Major scale pattern:
T-T-S-T-T-T-S
C major scale:
C D E F G A B C
Minor
Generally used for sad, angsty, disturbing or villainous music.
There are three forms of the minor scale:
Natural Minor Scale
Harmonic Minor Scale
Melodic Minor Scale
Modal
Modes were used predominantly in Medieval plainsong, although they can be found nowadays in jazz and classical compositions. The intervals are created by using only the white notes in scales starting on different notes. (Note: modes can be transposed to different starting notes which would involve them using accidentals.)
Pentatonic
A scale made up of five notes.
Major Pentatonic Scale: The first five notes in the circle of fifths.
Minor Pentatonic Scale: The 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 7th notes of the natural minor scale.
Japanese Pentatonic Scale: The 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th notes of the Phrygian mode.
Chromatic
A scale made up entirely of intervals of a semitone. Consists of 12 notes in an octave. In other words, play every available white and black note between two pitches of the same name.
Chromatic Scale on C: C C# D D# E F F# G G# A A# B C
Whole Tone
A scale made up entirely of intervals of a tone. Consists of six notes in an octave.
Whole tone scale on C:
C D E F# G# A#
Modulations
A modulation is the term for changing key in the middle of a piece of music. The most common modulations are to the dominant (V) or to the relative minor (vi), followed by the subdominant (IV), the dominant minor (iii) and the subdominant minor (ii). You may also find tertiary modulations: where the key moves by a third up or down.
Enharmonics
Enharmonics are alternate 'spellings' of notes that sound identical. For example, C# and Db are enharmonics - they are the same note on the keyboard but they are written differently.
Enharmonics are important in modulations as you may have to alter the 'spelling' of a note to fit it into a particular key.