Hack Music Theory, Part 1

Six centuries ago, along came the mad scientist genius John Dunstaple. Okay, he wasn’t really mad and he wasn’t really a scientist either: he was a composer and astrologer. But he was definitely a genius. And yes, this is the same John Dunstaple we met in chapter 3. No exaggeration, J.D. changed music forever. Bear in mind that coming straight out of centuries of perfect intervals, his never-before-heard magic 3rds sounded way more intense than they do now. Play your mum or your nan some proper metal – maybe a little Emperor – and I reckon they’d react kinda like the people did six hundred years ago upon first hearing triads. Extreme!

they’re calledrelatives, or relative scales.

Key thescale in use (e.g. a melody in the A minor scale is in thekey of A minor)

The relative major is the scale you get when you start on the 3rd note of a minor scale.The relative minor is the scale you get when you start on the 6th note of a major scale.

For example, if you emphasise the 6th note in the C major scale as your root, you get the A minor scale. And vice versa: if you’re in A minor and you want the major scale hiding within, emphasise the 3rd note (i.e. C) as your root. These two scales arerelatives, or relative scales, as they are scales that have the same notes, but a different root (i.e. they start in a different place).

When you start on the 6th note of a major scale (the ‘happy scale’), you get a minor scale, akanatural minor scale (nicknamed the‘sad scale’)

or ‘happy scale’ due to its cheerful sound.

Ascale is afamily of notes that work together.

The octave can, of course, be divided into any number of steps, like in the Arabic musical system where they halve western semitones into quartertones, resulting in twenty-four notes to an octave.

The harmonic series is the series of higher notes that are set off from the vibrations of a single note.