Fundamentals of Music Theory

University of Edinburgh

More on Scales
The A natural minor scale/Aeolian mode:

When the pattern of tones and semitones is different, the scale sounds different -
formally it has a different quality.

Here is an example of that different quality. This is God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, the
Christmas Carol that I played on flute, (written by an unknown composer, but probably
dating back to the Seventeenth Century).

If you are new to reading notation don’t worry, you can still follow the notes of this
tune - and notice how the melody keeps coming back to the A.

We also named the A natural minor the Aeolian mode - we will now move on to the
modes. Different modes are simply found by starting our major scale on a different
note- this then arithmetically rearranges the pattern of those 5 tones and 2 semitones-
the following modes are all therefore also diatonic.

Here are the names as we refer to them today: The Seven Diatonic Modes (showing the
patterns of tones and semitones)

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A mnemonic for remembering the modes is:

I Don’t Punch Like Muhammad A - Li.

To get a feel for the special qualities of each different mode, try playing them yourself
at a keyboard. Notice the different sequence of tones and semitones.

Also try this exercise. If you know the song Scarborough Fair, find the note D; play two
D’s and then an A, (the beginning of the song); keep trying to play it ‘by ear’; (yes I
know this is a literacy-based course, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use your ears

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- it’s an important skill). If you manage to get through the tune listen to how that D
feels like ‘home’. Try singing the scale while the song is in your memory. It might be
quite hard, but playing around like this will help you to experience tonality, and it will
help develop your general musicianship.

Another song in the Dorian mode is What Shall We do With a Drunken Sailor. To play
this song with white notes you have to start on A and go down to a D “what shall we do
with the drun ken ”(that's the D on “ken”).

Music doesn’t always start on its tonic, but it often finishes on it, and this song finishes
on D, which again should feel like home.

Of course you can do this with simple songs based on the major scale. You can begin
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star on C in order to keep it on white notes. Frere Jacques ( also
called Brother John or Are You Sleeping), starts and finishes on C, but Mary Had a
Little Lamb would start on E (the 3rd).

On the other hand, you could play along with our version of She Moved Through the
Fair, and see if you can ‘feel’ the G as the tonic note. Just keep playing the note G and
see how it 'fits' Anyway, try it - improvise on a keyboard or your own instrument!

The C major and A minor triads

A triad is a three-note chord. Deriving the C major triad from the C major scale:

Deriving the A minor triad from the A natural minor scale:

Here are the two triads standing alone, C major and A minor:

We can say here that C major is the tonic of the C major scale, and A minor is the tonic
of the A minor scale.

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Understanding the internal structure of the triads-major and minor:

Firstly we will understand the interval between the ‘bottom’ note and the ‘top’ note, by
breaking it down into semitones, and adding those up. For C major, it’s C and G:

This interval is a perfect fifth - an interval that spans seven semitones. We get the same
thing for A minor between A and E:

Now we need to find the interval between the ‘bottom’ and ‘middle’ note of the triad of
C major:

...which gives us a major third

And for A minor:

Here we have the minor third - smaller by one semitone, i.e. the minor third spans only
3 semitones. It is this difference in the ‘size’ or the interval of the third that makes all
the difference (perceptually) between these two chords.

Here we have all the triads as played by Zack starting at about 5 minutes in the video:

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In the next segment we are going to begin looking at how these triads relate to the C
major scale, starting with the three primary chords.

The three primary chords:

So we have the C major tonic triad, built on the tonic of the scale. The subdominant
triad is built on the fourth note, and the dominant triad on the fifth. The roman
numerals written underneath refer to these scale degrees and are another important
means of identifying the different triads in the scale. We will use this much more in the
coming lectures.

(note these are the only major chords- D, E, and A are minor and of course the B is
diminished)

At 3 minutes in the video, I harmonised each note of the major scale with one of these
primary chords - the following shows this in notation, also with the names of each
chord in lead sheet chord symbols:

A final word on all these chords. We are describing them as quite fixed entities- we
identify different triads, we say which notes go best with which chord etc. Historically
music was around for a long time before chords were identified in this way. In early
church music, monks began singing different melodic parts at the same time
(harmonising each other's voices). This developed into the technique known as
counterpoint (the term means note against note). As counterpoint became more
complex, three voices singing different notes might arrive together and form the kind
of chords we have been identifying. Slowly people began to realise that these could be
extracted and used more explicitly in the way we do now. Rameau in his Treatise on
harmony (1722) is generally credited with first describing triadic chords, as we now
know them, (but they would already have been in use). In the twentieth century, some
classical music began to dispense with triadic harmony, but in jazz, rock, pop, and folk,
chords continue to be the main way most musicians ‘think’ of harmony. (Visit certain
pop/rock music forums online and you will see countless posts from people asking for
the chords to play a whole variety of songs).

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Calculating Intervals:
As we said in the video, in order to calculate and fully describe an interval we need 2
pieces of information:

The numeric interval (e.g. a 3rd, or a 7th etc.)

The quality (e.g. major, minor, diminished etc.)

The numeric interval is fairly easy to find as we simply count from the lowest note to
the highest (inclusive). So, have a look at the following interval:

As we can see, the lower note is a C and the higher note is an A. So, in order to count
this we start on C and count:

C=1

D=2

E=3

F=4

G=5

A=6

As such, we can say that A is a 6th above C. Now, we need to find the quality...

A nice way to do this is to imagine that we are in the major key of which the lower note
is the tonic. So, in this case, the lowest note is C so we imagine that we are in the key of
C major. So, the question is, would we find an A natural in the key of C major...?

The answer is yes so we can say that this is an interval of a major 6th.

Let's recap and then discuss some more complex examples.

By imagining that we are in the major key of which the lowest note is the tonic, what
we are essentially doing is working out whether the upper note would be found in this
major scale. Major scales are useful starting points because, unlike minor scales they

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are constant, i.e. we don't alter them in the same way we do with minor scales.
Consequently, we know that the internal intervals are always the same. Just to remind
you, have a look at the following table:

Interval Quality

Unison Perfect

2nd Major

3rd Major

4th Perfect

5th Perfect

6th Major

7th Major

8ve Perfect

Quality of intervals in major scales/keys:

Also, look at the following image which illustrates how intervals change when the size
of the interval is increased or decreased:

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With that information in mind, let's have a look at the following interval, which is very
similar to the one that we just looked at:

In the first example we worked out that C - A was a major 6th because A is the 6th
degree of the C major scale. As this interval is C - Ab we know that it is also a 6th but
this time, the interval is a semitone smaller than before because the upper note has
been lowered by a semitone. So, using this logic we can say that a major interval that
is made smaller by a semitone becomes a minor interval. So, this interval would be
fully described as a minor 6th. We should also note that this is the 6th degree of C
natural minor! This is obviously no coincidence but, for now, lets work with the major
scale as our basis and we can work out alterations from this pattern using the method
outlined above.

OK, now for a trickier example - again, using this method, for ease of calculation. Have
a look at the following example:

So far we have said "imagine you are in the key of which the lower note is the tonic...".
This is fine but we hit a snag when we come to an example like this - there is no such

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key as D# major. Don't worry though, using the method that we have outlined above
there are a couple of easy ways to get around this:

Option 1 - cancel both accidentals:

In this case, we can simply ignore both accidentals! This leaves us with the same
interval but transposed down a semitone. So, if we imagine that this is D - C (i.e.
ignoring the sharps) we can quickly work out that D - C is a 7th. D major WOULD have
a C# so D - C# is a major 7th - in this case, the interval is a semitone smaller and is thus
a minor 7th. So, if D - C is a minor 7th, D# to C# is also a minor 7th.

Option 2 - cancel the accidentals on the lowest note:

If we want to stick to the method where we imagine that we are in the major key of
which the lower note is the tonic then we need to imagine that the lowest note is
D natural. If we do this then we have D - C# which we know to be a major 7th. When
we then put the accidental back in we are raising the lower of the two notes and thus
making the interval smaller by a semitone. As we know, when we make a major interval
smaller we get a minor interval. Again, we can say that this interval is a minor 7th.

Compound Intervals:

How do we deal with something like the following interval:

Well, if we count from the bottom note to the top one we see that it is more than an
octave - its an 11th, in fact. To describe this as an 11th could be considered to be slightly
problematic, however, as (a) dealing with large numbers gets confusing and (b) the fact
that this interval is C - F means that it does sound like a perfect 4th, in some ways. To
get around dealing with such large intervalic numbers, we relate intervals of larger than
an octave to their simple equivalents. So, in this case, the simple equivalent is a perfect
4th so we call this a compound perfect 4th. The word compound in this case lets us
know that the interval is actually out-with the octave!

More Practice:

Intervals can be tricky but the best way to get to grips with them is by doing as much
practice as you can. The site musictheory.net is wonderful for this and you can use it to

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practice many elements of this course. For interval practice, click here. The exercise is
set to be fairly easy but you can customise it using the controls in the top right hand
corner of the screen.

Triad Types:

As we have noted in this video and in a couple of the previous weeks, a triad is a 3 note
chord containing a root, a third and a 5th. The following are all triads:

The major triad consists of a root (C), a major third (E) and a perfect fifth (G).

The minor triad consists of a root (C), a minor third (Eb) and a perfect fifth (G).

The augmented triad consists of a root (C), a major third (E) and an augmented fifth
(G#) - incidentally, this means the intervals are consecutive major thirds.

The diminished triad consists of a root C, a minor third (Eb) and a diminished fifth
(Gb) - incidentally, this means the intervals are consecutive minor thirds.

Cadences:
In this segment we introduced the idea of cadences. In music, a cadence a melodic or
harmonic progression that creates a sense of finality or a pause in the music. We
mention two cadences in this section (and you will explore more in the next lecture),
one that sounds finished and one that sounds unfinished.

Lets look at the one that sounds finished, first:

Time Left0:10
As we can see we are in the key of C major and the chords are G7 followed by a C.
Numerically speaking this is chord V7 followed by chord I and this is know as a perfect
cadence.

Lets look at the one that sounds unfinished, next:

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Time Left0:10
Again, we are in the key of C major but this time the chords are a C followed by G7.
Numerically speaking this is chord I followed by chord V7, i.e. the reverse of the
example above. This is know as an imperfect cadence. This sounds unfinished (hence,
imperfect) because it finishes on the dominant 7th chord. We know that this chord is
unstable and sounds as if it requires a resolution.

In the video for this segment, we talked about building triads on each degree of the major scale and
minor scale. The following graphics will be useful for your reference:

Triads built on each degree of the major scale:

(This is shown in C major for ease of illustration but the pattern is the same in any
major key)

Triads built on each degree of the minor scale:

This is shown in A minor (built on the harmonic minor scale) for ease of illustration
but the pattern is the same in any minor key.

Building 7th chords on each degree of the major and

minor scales:
In the video for this segment we built 7th chords (i.e. 4 note chords) on each degree of
the major and harmonic minor scales. The following graphics will be useful for your
reference.

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7th chords built on each degree of the major scale:

(This is shown in C major for ease of illustration but the pattern is the same in any
major key)

7th chords built on each degree of the minor scale:

This is shown in A minor (built on the harmonic minor scale) for ease of illustration
but the pattern is obviously the same in any minor key.

Chord inversions:
Here are the inversions of the C major triad:

And the inversions of the A minor triad:

And inverting a dominant seventh chord:

Other types seventh chords can also be inverted three times. Here is C minor 7:

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Practice inverting triads and seventh chords on the keyboard, and also write them
down.

Using the root position for a final chord:

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star finishing on the root position tonic triad:

(Played at approximately 04:15)

Chord progressions - Ic V7 I:

In F major:

Passing second inversion:

At 05:50 in the video, John played this example where the second inversion is again
used. We are still in F major:

Note this example is unfinished-it would

probably continue-maybe back to the V and then on to I.

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Here is the perfect/authentic cadence again in D
major:

Here is the imperfect/half cadence example played by John:

Note only the last 2 chords are the actual imperfect cadence- D major to A major.

The interrupted/Deceptive cadence:

Here in D major, finishing on the vi chord, which is B minor.

Compare this to the perfect/authentic cadence example:

Note again the first chord is played for Context- the actual cadence is V – vi.

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The minor key example in G minor:

Compared to the minor key perfect/authentic cadence:

The Plagal Cadence:

Plagal cadence in rock:

(Note- chords fall approximately with lyrics, as shown)

This chord progression could be called a mixolydian cadence. Remembering the modes
from lecture 1 we found that the mixolydian started on G for white notes, but as John
showed we can transpose that (in the same way we have been transposing major and
minor keys) - so here the tune follows the mixolydian mode in E. For more on his very
common progression (in rock and funk) check out Professor Phil
Tagg: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmiUs9KUExE

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We have already looked at all the diatonic triads but
now we introduce all the formal names.
The diatonic triads in F major:

Also here in C major:

Of course all these triads can be extended to seventh chords, as you saw in Lecture 2
here they are again in C

Seventh chords in C:

Try to play through these triads and seventh chords on the keyboard.

The Ic V7 I Progression:

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Here is that progression, still in F, in the context of the Christmas song 'Hark the
Herald Angels Sing':

The iib V7 I Progression

Firstly, John played A minor 7. In the key of G major, this is the supertonic- ii, but as a
seventh chord it is ii7. John then puts it into first inversion:

Here is that chord in context for the ii7b V I chord progression (very common in jazz
also):

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Circle of Fifths (in C major):

Here is the first example of the chord progression using the circle of fifths:

(Note this shows the chord names and the Roman Numerals: lower case Roman
Numerals denote a minor chord except for viio, which denotes the diminished chord).

Here is the example played in G major:

Two things to note here- firstly John played it quite high so note the lower clef is also
in treble clef instead of the usual bass clef. Secondly, I again wrote out all the chord
names, which are now in the key of G, but the Roman Numerals remain the same- this
is the advantage of that system, it is not key specific, which makes it more flexible for
analysis.

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Here is the Vivaldi example (at 03:55 in the video):

This excerpt is in A minor and each bass notes is played twice, (repeated an octave
lower). The sequence of bass notes is: D, G, C, F, B, E, A.

Autumn leaves(played at 04:33):

I have written the chords out as whole notes, stacked in thirds in order to make it easy
to see them, but this is not how John played them. (Jazz players will mainly read from
the lead sheet symbols, and then choose the rhythms and inversions as they go).

Circle of fifths with inversions:

Here the second, fourth and sixth chords are in first inversion. Note how this makes
the bass line smoother.

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Using the circle of fifths to modulate to the relative minor (key of C major):

Here the circle of fifths stops at A on the relative minor. The difference from the earlier
example is that instead of the fourth chord being iii (E minor) it’s been changed into
III (E major), by moving the G natural to a G#. This E major is the V of A minor, so
helping to give a sense of modulation rather than just carrying on through the circle
back to C.

Using circle of fifths to modulate to another key:

In this case John went from C major to G major. Imagine that the music was just in C
major- so then C was I, but now that we want to move to G, we’ll re-think of C as IV.
(This is sometimes called a pivot chord)

The next chord is F# half diminished (in lecture 4 Zack and Nikki showed the difference
between the diminished seventh and half diminished seventh). The point is that the F#
chord is moving us into the tonality of G major- from there it’s just: iii7 vi7 ii V7 I.

(Another very popular sequence in jazz and Tin Pan Alley songs)

Two possibilities for modulation

While shepherds watched their flocks by night:

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Secondary dominants-V/V:

V/V Secondary dominant as used by Bach in Wie schon leuchtet der Morgenstern:

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Bach Prelude in C major:

We will now turn to the Bach prelude in C major (BWV 837- for your interest BWV
stands for Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis -Bach Works Catalogue, which was compiled in
1950).

This is going to tie together nearly all that we've done, and in fact go a little beyond
what we have covered, so don't be dismayed if you don't understand everything.

Here is the score. As you listen to the piece, follow the score- with a few tries even if
you are new to reading music you should be able to follow it. Note that the bar numbers
are written above the bar lines.

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Firstly it is 35 bars long and in the key of C major. Each bar has a different chord, played
in an arpeggiated style; that is playing each note of the chord separately but fast, so you
still perceive it as a chord. The rhythm is very consistent throughout giving a clear
sense of pulse, and with the harmony changing every bar, the meter is also very clear.
(John plays it in an authentic way with a consistent pulse, just a ritardando at the end.
In my opinion, many pianists try to “milk” the piece, taking rhythmic liberties as they
try to be too expressive).

For this harmonic analysis I'm going to use the Roman Numeral notation for most of
the chords, with the inversions: b- first inversion, c – second inversion and d- third
inversion for a seventh chord.

I will use the 7th symbol for any seventh chord. Going back lecture 4 we found that all
chords can be extended to include their seventh. Here Bach uses Dominant seventh,
and major seventh (so C major 7: C, E, G, B natural-play it and it will sound quite jazzy).
The minor seventh and diminished seventh are also used, more on those when we get
to them.

Also remember the secondary dominants: firstly V/V, which in C major is a D major
(II) leading to G. Secondly there is a V/ii, which here is A major to D minor, and finally
V/IV which is C7 to C major. (I'll explain more of that when it comes up).

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Another thing to notice is that most of the time the bass notes move stepwise from bar
to bar-only moving up or down to the next nearest note, or often they stay the same.
This makes things move smoothly and is called voice leading. Only at bars 10, 11, 18,
19, 21 and 32 are there bigger jumps or leaps.

Here we go - a bar by bar analysis.

Things start off quite straightforwardly- the first 5 bars establish the tonic key:

Bars 1 - 4: I, ii7d, Vb, I,

Bar 5: the relative minor - vib.

Bars 6 and 7: II7d,(D7 third inversion) which is V7/V, V-

Bars 8 – 11: Imajr7d, (C major with a B in the bass) vi7, V7/V, V this is a modulation to
the dominant (G) Bars 12 and 13: G diminished seventh – Vo7, (spelled G, Bb, C#, E).
Diminished chords are dissonant (play it to hear!), and can lead in many directions. In
this case the chord has a dominant function that makes it lead to the ii chord (D minor).
To see how this works we need to look at voice leading- how notes in a chord can move
short intervals to make a new chord. Here the Bb leads down to A, and the C# leads to
D, so Bar 13 is iib this shows it simplified:

Bar 14: another tricky one: it’s an F diminished chord. F should be IV, but this is ivo7,
but again through leading tones it acts like a dominant, bringing us back to the I on bar
15.

Bars 15 – 19: Ib, IVmajor7d, ii, V, I. This is a return to the tonic at the halfway point.
Note bar 19 is identical to bar 1, but one octave lower.

Next comes a C7. C7 is the V7 of F major i.e. V7/IV:

Bars 20 and 21: V7/IV, IV.

Things become more tricky now.

Bar 22: F#o7 (F#, A, C, Eb). This could be expected to lead to G because of voice
leading, but instead it moves to:

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Bar 23: Abo7 (Ab, B, D, F but there is also a C in the chord). This really ramps up the
tension- John told me that some music publishers actually added a bar of C minor in
between 22 and 23; they couldn't handle it, or thought it was ‘wrong’! However through
very elegant voice leading this Ab diminished leads to V: Here is another simplified
illustration of bars 22 – 24:

Image:
https://d396qusza40orc.cloudfront.net/musictheory/Week%205%20Graphics/35%
20bar22.png

Note that for bar 23 to change to bar 24 only the Ab has to move down to a G- that is
the smooth voice leading. (By the way this is also very jazzy progression, much loved
in bebop of the 1940's).

Bars 24-27: V7, Ic, V7sus4, V7. The V7sus4 means a G7 chord without a third-spelled
G, C, D, F. The C is a dissonance that 'wants' to move down to B (which it does to G7 in
the next bar). It is called a suspension- hence the sus. abbreviation.

Bar 28: Ebo7: another one that defies easy explanation. I think of it as Eb diminished
over G natural-(G, Eb, F#, A, C)-if you just play it as a chord out of context it sounds
pretty dissonant-full of 'wrong notes'! However, in context, it has a dominant function,
leading to Ic:

Bars 29 – 31: Ic, V7sus4, V7.

Note bars 24 to 31 have all had a G in the bass (called a pedal tone). Now the pedal is
going to drop to C.

Bar 32: C7 or V7/IV, the subdominant leaning that John mentioned. This leads to F,
(still over the C pedal), but before we have time to feel like we could be in F major, Bach
goes back to G7 (dominant of C) and so to the C major finish:

Bar 33-34: Ivc, V7, but over C pedal.

Again this creates more tension, but finally we come back home:

Bar 35: I.

Well that was a lot and again don't worry if you didn't follow it all, this would be pretty
challenging for a lot of third year music students! (This analysis is more detailed than
we would expect you to do in the final assessment). The real point is that all these
technical aspects we have been looking at come together to make music that is
compelling and propels itself forward- and has done for three hundred years. It has
been copied, ripped off, used as background for other tunes (Charles Gounod's Ave
Maria), etc.

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Here’s a summary:

Bar 1-5 set up the the tonic

Bar 10 is a modulation to the dominant

At Bar 19 there is a full return to the tonic.

Bars 20 to 23 increase the tension,and at Bar 24 the G pedal is introduced and tension
starts to ease.

At Bar 32 the C pedal is introduced and V7/IV, IVc, V7 take us back to I.

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