Harmony 101: Lesson 1

Welcome to the first lesson of Harmony 101 on Music Gurus. Here we are in Steinway Hall, surrounded by magnificent keyboards, and I'm going to use the piano to explain some basic concepts.

Overview of Key Concepts

Now, here are the most basic ideas you can get in studying music:

• Scale
• Chord
• Key

Just be patient because it will get complicated very soon. But to start with, I'll just talk about the scale.

Understanding Scales

We're surrounded by pianos, and we're going to use the piano as a reference to explain all of these concepts. However, it is not necessary to be a pianist at all. It would be useful, though, to have a keyboard for reference.

Suggested Instruments

It would be a good idea for you to get a cheap electric keyboard or a melodica, something where the notes are spelled out as they are at the piano keyboard. This way, you can see how these relationships work.

To start with a scale: from here to here, we have a scale.

The Major Scale

There are different possible scales, but right now we're talking about the major scale. This is a series of intervals you get just using the white keys between C and C.

The intervals of this scale are:

• Second
• Major Third (I'll explain why that term is used in a moment)
• Fourth (sometimes called a perfect fourth)
• Fifth (sometimes called a perfect fifth)
• Major Sixth
• Major Seventh
• Octave

When we refer to intervals of the scale (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7), it's always just taking them in order from the root, or what's technically called the tonic note of the scale.

Altered Intervals

But these intervals can be altered. For instance:

• There's still a third, sixth, seventh.
• If you have a minor scale, you have a minor third.

This was called a major third because there's a little more distance between the root (the tonic note) and the third.

• Here is the minor sixth
• That's the major sixth
• That's the minor seventh
• That's the raised seventh

So you have a different scale, but the key is still C.

Consistency in Scales

The important thing is to understand that the scale may change, but the root of the scale can be the same. You could have:

• A minor pentatonic scale
• A major pentatonic scale
• A blues scale

The crucial point is to maintain the same relationship between the tonic and the other intervals in the scale.

Key Signatures

And that's why we have key signatures.

• For example, if I start on F, there's the B flat in the key signature right there.
• If it weren't there, it would be quite a distinctly different sound.

To maintain the major scale, we need one flat in the case of F.

Further Example

Let's do one more example: there's one sharp in the key of G. All of this is just to keep that relationship constant.