Tonality

• A major scale contains a major 3rd and sounds happy
• A minor scale contains a minor 3rd and sounds sad
• If a piece is atonal it means that there isn’t a distinct key or mode and sounds dissonant
• A pentatonic scale uses 5 notes from the scale: 1,2,3,5,6
• If a piece is modal it means it based on a type of 7 note scale called a mode and can sound a combination of major and minor
• A blues scale uses ‘blue’ notes which are the flattened 3rd, 5th and 7th degrees of the scale
• relative majors/minors are scales that have the same key signature but a different tonic note. The tonic of a relative minor is 3 semitones down from the tonic of its relative major
• The degrees of the scale are as follows:

  I tonic

  II supertonic

  III mediant

  IV subdominant

  V dominant

  VI submediant

  VII leading note
• A tonic major/minor is the parallel minor of a major key and vice vers e.g C major is C minor
• A whole tone scale is a scale that moves in tones, no semitones
• A chromatic scale moves up and down in only semitones