Music/Scale/Major
Properties
- logseq-entity
- Logseq/Entity/Music/Scale
- scale-semitones-above-tonic
- 0 2 4 5 7 9 11
Major Scale
- Also called Ionian and natural major. On C: C D E F G A B. Steps in semitones: 2 2 1 2 2 2 1.
History
- Medieval theory recognized eight modes on the finals D, E, F and G, defined by final, range and reciting tone. A mode on C circulated in practice, often as a Lydian with B♭, but had no name in the system.
- Person/Heinrich Glarean's Dodecachordon (15/4/7) expanded the system to twelve modes and named the C mode Ionian, alongside Aeolian on A. Zarlino later renumbered the modes to start on C, which put Ionian first.
- Over the seventeenth century Ionian and Aeolian absorbed the other modes into major-minor tonality. Person/Jean-Philippe Rameau's Traité de l'harmonie (17/2/2) grounded the major triad in the resonance of a vibrating body and gave major its theoretical priority.
- The solmization syllables ut re mi fa sol la come from Person/Guido of Arezzo's hexachord, taken from the hymn Ut queant laxis in the eleventh century. The seventh syllable, si (later ti), was added much later.
Use
- The reference collection for common-practice tonality, Western pedagogy and most popular music. Every other diatonic mode is described as an alteration of it.
- Its association with brightness or happiness is learned. The MicroFreak manual's chapter on scales says as much in Microfreak/UG/15 Using Scales.
Quirks
- The diatonic collection is a stack of six perfect fifths (F C G D A E B). Its interval-class vector is 254361: each interval class appears a different number of times. Because the tritone appears once, a listener who hears F–B can locate the tonic; resolving that tritone inward to E–C is the core of the dominant-seventh resolution.
- In five-limit just intonation the scale needs two sizes of whole tone, 9:8 and 10:9. D–A then comes out a syntonic comma narrow of a pure fifth, so the ii triad is out of tune in a just C major. This is the textbook case for temperament.
- Inverting the step pattern about the tonic produces Music/Scale/Phrygian. Inverting Mixolydian produces Music/Scale/Minor/Natural, and Music/Scale/Dorian inverts to itself.
- The pitch-class complement of the major scale is Music/Scale/Pentatonic/Major: on a piano, white keys against black keys.