What a bloody drag...

Decide once for all: is it elementary math or something more complex?

Again, no, and moreover:

Decide once for all again: by your own words (you contradict yourself), root note is not the only difference, there is also relationship (I guess you mean scale intervals).

Let's explain better: given the same whatsoever scale, INTERVALS are the same for any root key.

Wrong: only THREE are different, not two, see the Cm clef, Bb, Eb, Ab.
If you speak of the harmonic minor scale it's another story, leading tone is created artificially, removing Bb.
Again, the "formula", as you call it, is different, even if keys were just two (but it's not).

BLAHBLAHBLAH
Clearer? Not at all.

Why not? overlap at the same time a Cm and C chord, maybe adding a C#m, hear how they sound fine together.

And the OP is still missing...

 

There are two obvious answers to a question like this if it's not a pisstake.
First, you are a musician and if you have been playing for a time and listened to a lot of music you should know what is good not only by sound but by skills. The second is if a person does not know what sounds good they should investigate a career that does not involve sound. There is a third, do you like it? Yes? Then it's good to you.
A seasoned musician can appreciate music they do not particularly like by the skills or music difficulty, even though they may not choose to play it or listen to it with any regularity by the skills of the musicians performing the music too.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jan 8, 2021

It is difficult to be wrong if you are focusing your composition on Voice leading and it's what you hear that works for you. In this case a C is in the melody so using voice-leading chords you have named which I put up with no thought because I have been doing it for a very long time, it is simple in 4-note form, but totally correct. With thought I could probably do better. Steely Dan, Antonio Carlos Jobim and many others did many tunes exactly the same way, by letting the melody and bass note dictate it going in a certain direction, not the scale.. But this is not a symposium as I said.

You have taken this out of context - AGAIN - the melody note is a C and every one of those chords like the ones above all have C as a voice-leading mechanism to be totally correct.

Why in heaven's name you would think I remotely suggest anything to do with your skills when I do not know you or your music is beyond me???
I was illustrating several things, that there is no single way to do this and on this site, you never know thanks to Foster, who is taking the piss and who is serious. However, only using scale harmony is limiting. I am suggesting open up to any possibility, then anything is possible.

EDIT: As the writer, if you are writing for the art, then the only construct that matters is it sounds good to you. If you are writing to please others, then it only matters that they are happy. If you are writing in a specific idiom, then that is what matters, the idiom.
As for scales, when you put an Amaj7 over a Bb triad, you end up with three semi-tones in the harmony and there is no western scale for that. If it was only an A triad over a Bb triad, it would be in a harmonic minor scale. But this is ONLY if you really want to compose by scales. The best tunes if you search the writers speaking online were not written that way. Most were by melody, expression, feeling, voice-leading or they simply heard it.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jan 9, 2021

terminology is more complex.

a major scale or the 12 tone chromatic tone system are simple arithmetics.

either or.

if you already classify the root note as the main difference (like i did), then the frequency relations of the a minor scale are the same as in C major.

if you dont look at the root note first, then the frequency relations in the minor scale are different.

yes of course. between the scale of C major and D major the only mathematical relation is that the root note is different.

but when you compare the key C major with A minor, which is only yet another mode of the same scale, the scale is the same except which key is the root note.

you can use the a minor scale to play a piece of music which was written for C major and nobod will notice. ;)

you can not do this with A major.

both, in arithmetics and from the historic context, minor is calculated like i told you:

go up for 9, construct major (most possible equal distribution for 7 out of 12), go down for 9.

thats what everyone uses.

if you dont trust the formula i was giving you, then try it yourself.


1. the equal temperament chromatic scale is constructed as follows:

root key -> F0 (Hz)
F0 * (2^(1/12)) -> F1
F1 * (2^(1/12)) -> F2
F2 * (2^(1/12)) -> F3
F3 * (2^(1/12)) -> F4
F4 * (2^(1/12)) -> F5
F5 * (2^(1/12)) -> F6
F6 * (2^(1/12)) -> F7
F7 * (2^(1/12)) -> F8
F8 * (2^(1/12)) -> F9
F9 * (2^(1/12)) -> F10

note that if you use the chromatic scale as musical scale, there is no root key i.e. if you assign one, it could be any other as well.

2. to get a diatonic scale you then convert the chromatic scale to a diatonic scale.

first you have to convert frequency values to linear vaues (you usually use midi notes, i am delimiting the range to 8.1 Hz = note number 0 here) ...

log10(Hz /8.175798) / log10(2^(1/2))

...and then you find the most equal distribution for 7 across 12:

int( (((notenumber + 1) * 12( / 7) -1)

now you have contructed "C major" - and until here it is the same math behind all major and minor scales.

since A minor shares the same frequencies and only has another root note, the most straigh forward way would be to calculate it the same way, int( (((notenumber + 1) * 12( / 7) -1), and then simply define -3 or +9 as root instead of 0. (i.e. "changing the mode and transposing it")

got it?

there is of course an alternative, which is calculating the equal distribution with offsets and then later transpose to te root key you want.

so you first convert the frequency set in Hz to C minor - and then do -3 (or +9)

int( (((notenumber + 6) * 12( / 7) -10) -3

but it doesnt make any philosophical difference whether you define A major beeing "only" a mode of C major (like i did) or treat it as a totally unique and independet system, which vastly differs from major (like you did), because as you can see here, it is mathematically always the same - except of the one number, "which is the root key"

 

Last edited: Jan 9, 2021

of course all this is for ET scales only.

for just scales and all the possible pitch-rational tunings around, the math is different again and the discussion about the congruency between modes and tranpositions would be a completely different story.

 

Last edited: Jan 9, 2021

what sounds good is always subjective.

there is no higher instance which gives you an order what you should like and what not.

listen & judge yourself.

you are the boss.

 

Last edited: Jan 9, 2021

I am one of those guys who learned his scales in the 1980s and much more than I will ever say on this site. But think whatever you wish.

 

Just to say, with these two questions residing in the same comment, any literary-minded person cannot possibly Agree or Disagree to one of them without contradicting themselves!
But somehow, I reckon you know this.

Very unsubtle insult.

 

haha! Nicely put.
Sssh. The guys don't know I can't play in F, only Dm.

 

Last edited: Jan 9, 2021

You know nothing about voice leading which is a critical musical composition tool and you have shown that clearly how very little you know. I know teenagers who understand voice-leading and it seems they know much more than you do. Do not ask questions if you do not want answers. Put your music up if you are so amazing and show everyone how incredible you are. Put your music where your mouth is seeing you think I know so little.

EDIT: Additionally, you did not even reply to the Amaj7 over a Bb triad. If you knew as much as you make out, it's only intermediate scale knowledge and you would have known that. You use a composite scale. Not even difficult. Insult someone else.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jan 9, 2021

Technically speaking EVERYONE is a bit absolutist, don't you think?

For example, me and other people I know (and I'm sure many others too), studied ALL tonalities on keyboard and I can assure that I'm able to play them all even blind, without all your terrible TECHNOBABBLE.

Knowing how to play scales I didn't dig (just don't care at all), BUT at least two formulas that you wrote have a syntax error: 5 opening brackets require 5 closing brackets, not 3, for sake of correctness.

And you got it that after all this you didn't know that Cminor have 3 accidentals and not 2?
It seems that you declined too easily not answering on this simple and yet fundamental question.
My personal guess is that you know very little of music theory.

Beside the fact that the lack of feedback from the OP means probably that is not interested anymore or tired of all these useless quarrels, like someone who asks for for a glass of water in a bar and bartenders fight themselves to fob him off a bottle of whiskey, I give up.
Have it in your way.

Peace

 

no i dont think so. there is one form of arithmetics, not various different ones.

but feel free to show me how you would contruct these scales. actually i expected that you did it by now.

i can assure you that you can not play 4965 of the 5000 scales in the scala library at all on the keyboard, because they arent equal temperament scales and so nobody can play them on a piano or guitar.

and if you can play a scale blind has nothing to do with the the question whether some scale is similar to another or not.

no, that just was a little test to find out if you are interested in learning more about the topic or if you just want to be right.

which fundamental question?

you should not guess. you are supposed to try out the math i gave you, in order to understand why C major and A minor is almost the same scale, and not something completely different.

there are no other two scales which have more in common than one beeing a mode of another in a ET scale. if you know one, show it.

you are free to correct me and present us your derivation for your counter thesis, that they are not almost equal/very similar.

and remember where we were coming from: the OP was wondering how to compose in major when you are used to do it in minor.

until now you seem to be more focused on finding typos and making assumptions.

 

What complicated alchemy, when it is enough to know the scales in all the tones and their respective chords. And for that it is enough to open a book on the theory of the music ...... It's so simple !!!!!!!

Quelles Alchimies compliquées, alors qu'il suffit de connaitre les gammes dans toutes les tonalités et leurs accords respectifs.
Et pour ça il suffit d'ouvrir un livre sur la théorie de la musique......C'est si simple!!!!!!!

 

Gomania foster ... you've been banned countless times, what do you expect?

Guys, no need to answer, all this will disappear in no time.

 

Just asking, which C minor are you speaking of?

The Cminor in a major scale, the C minor in a melodic minor scale or the C minor in a harmonic minor scale? Or the C minor relative minor to Eb?

Cm melodic = C,D,Eb, F, G, A, B, C (one flat)
Cm Harmonic = C,D,Eb, F,G, Ab, B, C (Three flats)
If you are talking in the mode of C minor as being relative to the key of Eb major, then it is the Aeolian mode of Eb with C,D,Eb,F,G,Ab,Bb, C (three flats).
In the Baroque period, music in C minor was usually written with a two-flat key signature.

If you are talking the Chord Cm7 (C,Eb,G,Bb) then it has two flats, with the Cm7b5(sometimes called C half-diminished) has three flats - C,Eb, Gb, Bb. For it to have only three flats as the only possibility as you suggest, this would mean you are only speaking in terms of the C harmonic minor scale and relative minor. There is more than one minor scale and as you can see not every C minor chord has a flattened 7th, depending on which scale you choose. So neither of you are wrong, or for that matter, completely right either. A Cm(maj7) is definitely a legitimate chord in all music, though less frequently heard in popular music, more in classical, jazz, contemporary arenas and it is in both the Cm melodic and harmonic minors as it has a B natural and the chord has only one flat in it.
If you look at the Arabic and Hebrew minor scales that's a whole new ballpark.
As but one example - Cm Arabic = C,D,Eb, Gb,G,Ab,B,C what is important in this scale is not the three flats, but the fact three notes are sequentially a semi-tone apart.

In fact the really important part is the chordal harmony generated by each of the abovementioned scales and what chords they're applicable to, otherwise they're just scales.

Just an observation.

P.S the Cminor7 can be in a key with more than 3 flats (Ab)

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jan 14, 2021

Cminor in major scale? What does it mean? Edit: I guess you mean chords, but here the subject is scales.
I can't believe this is so difficult: Cminor, period.

Have you ever studied on piano or orchestral score? Never read a staff?

I wrote above that in C minor harmonic scale the leading tone is created artificially dissolving Bb into natural B.
That doesn't mean that will disappear magically from clef, only will be written as TEMPORARY natural accidental, that by convention ends its duty after the measure bar.

C minor IS INDEED the relative minor key of Eb major, they share the same exact accidentals in key clef, I don't get the point of this question.

Ever heard of Hanon book?
See below the scales from the book:
1) Minor melodic (Minor NATURAL with all accidentals in DESCENDING scale).
Notice the temporary accidentals and their absence in the descending melodic.
2) Minor harmonic (leading tone created artificially with B natural);

I personally never saw it, but even if I doubt it was so frequent, it could be (I imagine seeing Bach writing the well tempered clavier with Cminor prelude and fugue in 2 accidentals...haha)
...So what? And I read it too on wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C_minor

There are many as far as I recall, but a Cminor of any type will ALWAYS have 3 flats on key clef, plus as many TEMPORARY accidentals to match the altered intervals.

Even less flats for that. You can play CHORD Cm7 wherever you want (not really, but...), but you'll have to rearrange TEMPORARY accidentals to match the new key clef, for example Fmajor (Bb only in key clef) plus a TEMPORARY Eb, and it could resolve in I grade of F major, but of course will not be as effective as C7 (dominant of F) into F.
Or could be Ebm (6 accidentals in clef), with added G and C natural accidentals, resolving (modulating), duh, again in F.

 

Last edited: Jan 14, 2021

If you read the entire thing that is why I asked and the scales I listed clearly as I know scale to chord harmony in my sleep

get away from classical harmony man it is LIMITED... tell me all the relative harmony to Minor melodic, harmonic - Every chord to it's maximum 7 note structure where available e.g C13#11, Fm(maj13) so on and so forth Lydian Dominant modes (scales) Super Locrian so on and so forth - Your post is classical and very simple - Scale-chord harmony knowledge is critical otherwise it is ONLY a scale which I said.. What you've put up I knew 35 years ago. Expand your horizons.
Read next time please.

TINY TINY example the IV mode of the melodic minor scale... (Examples: Gm melodic then Cm then Dm)






SIMPLE version


Extend them to the 7 note maximums where they can be extended.
THIS is REAL VERY SIMPLE scale knowledge and I mean basic knowledge. Yours is high school harmony.

 

Last edited by a moderator: Jan 15, 2021

Did you guys scare the OP?

 

Last edited: Jan 18, 2021

I know what you are trying to say - that the major or minor feel depends on the harmonic context. But consider a single melodic line, it is not as simple as phrasing the line with a accented rhythm that emphasises a different modal relationship. The overall harmonic progression itself matters (at the very least, where you start and stop) in determining the harmonic context.

Yes, you can play the same order of notes in a melodic line over different chords and it will have a different feel, but, well, those chords are different notes...

 

Last edited: Jan 15, 2021

I've only been doing music 2 years im 36 and im a father to a baby girl.. I feel sad for you that if your not good at something the first couple of months you should quit mentality.. makes me wonder what else you might of been great at but said well I don't understand this so let me hang up my hat..im no Dr Dre or Zaytoven But I can put together a proper track.. but u learned Minor keys first because thats what I came across on youtube first and it was the easiest way for me to create something that doesn't sound like a kids jingle movie sound track..I appreciate everyone's outlook on things but far less when they give no value what so ever and just try and down me.. we have enough of that in the world and I would like to think music can be my safe haven away from nasty people and things.