TALKING ABOUT MUSIC 13Johnny Comes Marching Home” is a widely known tune that uses the minor
scale.
Most people perceive the minor scale as dark, tense, or sad in comparison
to the brighter, more relaxed sound of major. After a short introduction in the
major, the fi rst section of James Reese Europe’s Castle House Rag (LG 10.3, 0:04–
0:19) begins in the minor but switches to major at 0:15. Can you hear that shift
from dark to light near the end of the fi rst section?
In the European classical tradition, the major and minor scales developed
out of a medieval system in which major and minor (differently named) were
on ly t wo of severa l po s sible d iaton ic sc a les, c a l led modes. Some of those older
modes resurface in folk music and especially in popular music from the rock
era and later. For example, Santana’s “Oye como va” (LG 19.1) uses a mode that
resembles, but is not quite identical to, the minor scale. All the diatonic scales
and modes, incidentally, can be played on the white keys of the piano.Tonality and Key
A characteristic of melodies using any of the scales we’ve discussed is their
tendency to come to rest on the first scale degree, called the tonic. Much as
in the overtone series the fundamental is the pitch to which the higher par-
tials are related, the tonic is the central note around which the other scale
degrees are organized. We hear it as “home.” A melody may or may not begin
on the tonic, but it must end on the tonic to create a sense of resolution. Try
singing “Happy Birthday” or any other familiar tune, stopping just before the
last note. You can feel how the tune “wants” to resolve on the last note: that’s
the tonic.
You can think of the tonic as the center of a musical solar system—a sun
around which the other scale degrees orbit like planets. The gravitational force
that holds them together is called tonality, and it’s a powerful organizer of much
of the world’s music.CDEFGABCDEFGABCDEFGABCDEFGABCDEFGABCDEFGABK Major scales beginning
on C and F sharp. The
interval pattern is the same
in both scales. Notice that
two extra scale degrees
have been added to each of
the pentatonic scales in the
previous illustration.K Minor scales beginning
on C and on F sharp. In each
scale, scale degrees 3, 6,
and 7 are a half step lower
than the corresponding
degrees in the major scales
in the previous illustration.172028_00b_001-017_INTRO_r3_ko.indd 13 23/01/13 9:47 AM