When most of my students start learning piano, the very first thing I get them to do is a pentascale based around C major. This is because - simple as it is - it is a powerful tool to get newcomers to the instrument into the mindset of thinking about each finger’s own individuality and need to remain strong (not only do notes have to pressed, but they have to to sound even and the rhythm has to be maintained).
Yet the pentascale offers a very strong insight into theory as well, in as much as you can use them to begin to understand the differences between the major and minor key.
And the key (pun intended) to the difference between major and minor is literally one note - and it’s literally only one note: a semitone - apart!
So let’s dive deeper into this and firstly refresh ourselves of arguably the most important interval when it comes to differentiating between major and minor:
The Third
There are three types of interval all in all, and delving into the differences would be another blog post in itself, but for this post I’ll just do a quick recap:
Major Intervals: Extracted from the major scale of the root.
Minor Intervals: Usually extracted from the minor scale of the root.
Perfect Intervals: The ones that remain through both the major and minor scales of the root (fourths, fifths and octaves).
As ever, let’s take C major as our example.
C - D - E - F - G - A - B
And now let’s reduce this down to a pentascale (the first five notes of the scale):
C - D - E - F - G
And now let’s number those notes:
C = 1
D = 2
E = 3
F = 4
G = 5
Now we can use these to find out the intervals from C. Because this is a C major pentascale, all intervals aside from ones mentioned above as perfect are going to be major. Therefore:
C - D = major second
C - E = major third
C - F = perfect fourth
C - G = perfect fifth
Now let’s hone in on the third…
When beginner pianists start to learn about intervals, they will usually do so without learning the terms ‘major’ or ‘minor’, therefore C - E to many beginners will just be, quite simply, a third.
However - it is a major third simply due to the nice brightness of its sound.
Play C and E together (a harmonic interval) and play them one after the other (a melodic interval) and see how they sound to you.
Now - let’s count the semitones between them, a semitone being every single note whether black or white.
Starting from C you will go up one (black), up one (white - D), up one (black) and up one to reach E, so we can say there are four semitones between the notes. Note how when counting distance between notes you count the jumps as one, not to be confused with counting intervals above where the individual notes are counted as one, starting with the root note (C) as one.
How do we make this minor, therefore?
It’s very straightforward - you just lower the third (E) by one semitone! In this case that means flattening it, so we have C - E♭.
This interval is a minor third.
Play a harmonic and melodic minor third to yourself and see if you can hear the difference.
Play a major third followed by a minor third and see how it sounds to you.
Perhaps it sounds a bit like Strauss’ iconic ‘Also Spruce Zarathrusta’ - because that is precisely how it goes!
Needless to say, if you counted the semitone degrees between C and E♭ you will find that you have one less - three!
Therefore, a major third is four semitones apart, whereas a minor third is three semitones apart.
Applying the Thirds to the Pentascale
Now we have established the rule of the third, we need to apply it to our pentascale.
We already have our C major pentascale:
C - D - E - F - G
Learning what we have learnt above, we can see that it has a C at the base and an E in the scale, so that is enough of a clue to tell us what tonality this will be - major!
Play that scale (C - D - E - F - G - F - E - D - C) but listen to how it sounds.
It should sound quite bright and cheery.
Try singing along to it - put some words to it (not ‘do - re - mi’ - be creative!) and allow this tune to become a fixture of your understanding of what a major pentascale sounds like! Keep it consistent with the mood - something about your favourite food or favourite place would be great!
Take a look at the diagram below:
Note the configuration of semitones between each individual note as this will come in handy if you find you need to locate a pentascale that you’re unfamiliar with. Starting from any note, count up two semitones, then two semitones, then one semitone, then two semitones and the notes you have landed on (including the note you started on) make a pentascale based on the note you start from. This is basic transposition, which basically means changing the key of a piece of music. As you can tell if you try finding other scales using this method, everything moves systematically and logically!
The fantastic thing about how many major or minor pentascales you know is that you will also know the alternatives - the major or minor - with just one very slight adjustment!
Let’s just pretend that you didn’t know C major.
Remember the power of that middle note - the third?
The only thing that is differentiating our major pentascale from our minor pentascale is that interval:
Therefore, by substituting E♭ for the E in our major pentascale, we create a C minor pentascale!
Play this (C - D - E♭ - F - G - F - E♭ - D - C) and note how this sounds.
For the sake of that one note’s difference, it should sound decidedly sadder, moodier, scarier - depends how you play it!
Put some new lyrics to this one to reflect the mood and get used to how this little tune goes as well!
Now play around and create your own melodies within the scope of those five notes and hear how different they can sound just because of the one note’s difference!
Be Creative with Music: Modulate Between the Relative Major and Minor
There are about as many ways to determine how to find the relative minor of a scale as there are pieces of music, it would seem, but usually I would suggest the ‘sixth degree of a major scale’ approach.
However, this blog is about pentascales and I just don't feel like adding one more note to our pentascale to find this, so instead I’ll tell you another way:
The first three notes of your major pentascale are the last three notes of its relative minor’s pentascale.
For example, C major pentascale begins C - D - E.
Therefore, it’s relative minor’s pentascale is ? - ? - C - D - E.
By logic of C major being an entirely white note based scale, we can already fill in the gaps using our knowledge of the alphabet: A - B - C - D - E - to establish A minor.
HOWEVER
If you didn’t know this, or indeed you are playing in a key that is much less obvious to determine than that, you can use the diagram above to count downwards and - crucially - use your ear to assess whether your newfound minor pentascale is, in fact, correct (play your new pentascale and sing your words along to check that it all sounds right!)
Now try the following exercises:
Play the C major pentascale with the chord of its relative minor in the left hand (C major pentascale with an A minor chord* in the left hand).
Play the A minor pentascale with the chord of its relative major in the left hand (A minor pentascale with a C major chord in the left hand).
Improvise a short piece of music based around the notes of the C major pentascale in the right hand. Listen carefully to how it sounds, then continue improvising and play A minor in the left hand.
Improvise a short piece of music based around the notes of the A minor pentascale in the right hand. Listen carefully to how it sounds, then continue improvising and play C major in the left hand.
Play a bar or two each of a theme you create using the notes of the C major pentascale, followed by the A minor pentascale, and repeat, switching your left hand to accompany with the respective chord each time you do so.
*just as if it were the full scale, finding a triad chord is as easy as finding notes 1 - 3 - 5 of the pentascale.
What you should start to hear now is a distinctive difference in how the scales can be interpreted depending on their context. The first few exercises above will allow you to hear how the major and minor keys sound beyond the notes of the melody - by putting a little emphasis on what is happening in the background.
The last exercises will start to help you adjust to the differences in tone when performed together: how a piece of music that is in one tonality overall - major or minor (depending on which one you started with, usually) can incorporate both major and minor chords to its advantage without destroying its overall tonality - yet by playing around with them yourself, you will begin to hear the subtle differences in the tone which will help you to understand the big difference between the two!
Jack Mitchell Smith is a piano teacher based in Macclesfield, Cheshire. Click here to find out more.
Weekly blogs are posted that may help you with your musical or piano journey. Click here to sign up to the mailing list so you never miss a post!
Comments