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music notation
music-notation for Drummers: the Major Scales
Allright, let's face it: we, being drummers (M/F), do have quite a reputation... we should be not all that smart, we bash our equipment, we get all the beautiful girls (or boys) at every gig (- hhmm, in fact this is not so bad at all, BTW -), etc. etc.
Of course that's merely because those guitar-players are a bit jealous and they have to come up with something, haven't they?
Right, you all know these old boring jokes, like:
'How many drummers are needed to change a tire? At least four: one to practice his paradiddles on it, another one to discuss how Simon Phillips would have done this, a third one to give up and buy a drumcomputer and the last one to call a guitarist to do the job!' Yeah, right...!
Well, no more mister Niceguy! We are going to beat them on their own territory... and learn a few basics right away!
The Keyboard
This page contains some basics about major scales.
My intent is to give you a scheme which will help you...
How to read it?
First you have to imagine a little piano, let's say with a very cheap keyboard... (If you think this next thing looks like a piano, I will love you for it, but other people may question your sanity, but..., O.K....)
What you see here are all the NOTES we have on the piano on one OCTAVE (=8 tones). A piano/keyboard contains usually a lot more of those octaves...
The keyboard contains white and black keys. Tones and semi-tones.
C#/Db D#/Eb F#/Gb G#/Ab A#/Bb
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C D E F G A B
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The tones on the keyboard are always the same:
7 White ones: C-D-E-F-G-A-B-C
5 Black ones: C#/Db-D#/Eb-F#/Gb-G#/Ab-A#/Bb
"#" and "b"
"#" behind the tone is called "sharp": e.g. the pitch went up
"b" behind the tone is called "flat" : e.g. the tone has been lowered.
When do you use C# (C-sharp) and when Db (d-flat)?
Just a matter of what you want...
If you're playing an ascending melody, it's: A-A#-B-C-C#
If you're playing a descending melody, it's: Db-C-B-Bb-A
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Major Scales
When you know what these tones are called you can make scales.
The Ancient Greeks already found out about the mathematical relations between tones we call scales.
They're not too hard to learn (think about that famous 'Sound of Music'-song "Doe, a deer, a female deer...", etc.)
The Greeks produced what we call the Major Scale... it goes like this:
Tone - Tone - Semi-Tone - Tone - Tone - Tone - Semi-Tone
You simply need to learn this to make your own song.
Usually a song uses notes from one of the scales...
As you see the C-Major Scale serves as our basic scale, but you can easily get other scales by using the same pattern.
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Playing the C Major Scale
"C": Whole step needed, so you calculate "C" and "C#" (black half-note) and you end up with "D". So your first step is C-D.
"D": Whole step needed, so you add a "D#" to it to end up with "E"
"E": Now you only need a Semi-Tone, and guess what, there is NO black (semitone) between E and F, so from "E" to "F" is considered a half step.
"F": Whole step, you end up with "G"
"G": same, but ends up with "A".
"A": same, but ends up with "B".
"B": Theory says you need a Semi-Tone here and, right, there's NO black (semi-tone) between "B" and "C", so it's B and octave C.
One more:
Let's take the D-Major scale:
"D": The first one's easy: D whole step to E
"E": But now we're in big trouble: "E" needs a whole step and cannot simply go to "F", because there's no semitone (black) inbetween. Therefore you need to add one and you reach "F#", so it's E-F#.
"F#": The third is not difficult: you need a semitone and you end up with "G".
"G": you do the rest...
same goes for ALL the scales, be careful with the semitones! :-)
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1 1 1/2 1 1 1 1/2
C D E F G A B C
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C#/Db D#/Eb F F#/Gb G#/Ab A#/Bb C C#/Db
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D E F#/Gb G A B C#/Db D
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D#/Eb F G G#/Ab A#/Bb C D D#/Eb
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E F#/Gb G#/Ab A B C#/Db D#/Eb E
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F G A A#/Bb C D E F
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F#/Gb G#/Ab A#/Bb B C#/Db D#/Eb F F#/Gb
------------------------------------------------------------------
G A B C D E F#/Gb G
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G#/Ab A#/Bb C C#/Db D#/Eb F G G#/Ab
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A B C#/Db D E F#/Gb G#/Ab A
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A#/Bb C D D#/Eb F G A A#/Bb
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B C#/Db D#/Eb E F#/Gb G#/Ab A#/Bb B
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