9th June 2019
we go to the next level!
This article is for students in the 4th year of the Spanish Elementary Degree (9-10 years old) that will do the test for the grade change.
We will remember which types of scales there are, how to know in which key is our piece that we play with our instrument, and how to analyze the intervals. This last thing is very important to then learn how to build the chords, that give harmony to the melodies.
Scales
We know about two different types of scales: Major and minor. When we listen to them, the major scales sound sort of happy, and the minor scales sad.
What makes that we have these feelings are the semitones. If you look at the diagram, the major scales have the semitones between the 3rd and 4th grades and between the 7th and 8th grades. The minor natural scales have them between the 2nd and 3rd grades and between the 5th and 6th grades. You can easily remember this memorizing the numbers for each scale as if it is a mobile phone PIN: 3478 for the major scales and 2356 for the minors.
The minor scales can be natural, harmonic or melodic, and these last two are made from the natural scale.
Every time that they ask you for a scale, you can follow these steps:
Escriure l'armadura de la tonalitat que ens demanen.
Escriure les notes de l'escala, pujant i baixant.
Si es tracta d'una escala menor harmònica o menor melòdica, posar els sostinguts o becaires que faci falta, si és Major o menor natural, ja no cal fer res més.
Keys - key signatures
A key signature is a group of sharps or flats that we find at the beginning of every staff, and it indicates in which key the piece is. Every key signature has two possible keys: major or its relative minor. At the diagram on the right you can see how to identify the key signatures with sharps and flats, and also how to find the minor relative.
If they ask us for a minor key, first we have to know the major relative, and it is done the same but inverse: instead of counting 2 notes down, we go 2 notes up, and we also make sure that we have 1 tone and 1 semitone.
Now you know how to identify keys having the key signature, but how we do it to write a key signature knowing the key? We will follow these steps:
If it has a flat in the name
Write flats in their order until getting to the one of the name.
Add one more flat. For example: A M has B-E-A-D flats in the key signature.
If it doesn't have a flat
Baixar una nota a la del nom.
Escriure l'ordre dels sostinguts acabant en aquesta nota. Per exemple: La Major té fa-do-sol sostinguts.
Intervals
An interval is the sound distance between two notes. The ones that we will work with now are the ones on the left, in the diagram. The number tells us which distance it has, and the mode (two right columns) indicates how it sounds.
If we combine these two, we have lots of possible intervals. Look!
In fact, you only need to learn the Major and the Perfect, because the other neighbors of the same number go by semitones. For example: if you know that a major 3rd has 2T, lower it 1ST to know how many does the minor 3rd have (1T 1ST), or increase it 1ST to know how many does the augmented 3rd have (2T 1ST).
The intervals can also be ascendant o descendant, depending on if they go to the high or to the low. They can also be melodic or harmonic, depending on if the notes are separated or they sound together.
It would sound melodic like this...
...and harmonic like this
Activities
You can print these 5 models of exercise files to practice all that you learned and prepare yourself for the grade change! You can send me photos of the files done if you want me to correct them. Cheers!
