In this section, we're going to look more at the vertical distances between notes.

If you remember back to the graph we originally drew and

we said the vertical axis represented high pitches or low pitches.

We're now going to start quantifying those.

Now, we did say that we had an octave

which is a real phenomenon, a phenomenon of nature.

And we said that was eight notes.

Of course, it's actually seven note names, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, back to A.

But, of course, if you look, for instance, at

Zack's guitar here, you'll see that there aren't seven notes.

There's a lot more.

>> So, we did an example where we said that the

open A string is here and then if you half that string.

It's an octave above.

But if we look at the, the discreet pitches available to us in between.

We've actually got, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,

10, 11, 12, and then things start to repeat again, actually.

So what we're saying is the octave on many musical instruments nowadays

isn't divided into eight, as you'd expect based on the prefix oct.

Actually, we have 12 distinct pitch classes.

>> Yeah.

Now, if we were to look at the piano, we will see the same thing again.

So looking at what Zack did on guitar.

If we look at it on the piano, instead of

having frets, of course we've got all of these white notes.

We've also got these black notes, which we're now going to introduce.

So, starting on A, where Zack was, 1,2,

3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10,

11, 12, and then we're back to A.

And there's the octave [SOUND].

Now, going back to this A, this distance here is called a semitone.

Where semi means half.

If that distance is called a semitone this distance

is called a Tone.

Semitone, half, double it, tone.

That's the same on all instruments.

Okay, keep that thought in mind.

We're now going to have a look at that represented back on our stave.

Now, this semitone is the smallest distance that

we're going to work with at the moment.

Now, if you want to find out more about that, we have additional material on it.

But let's just say for the moment, the semitone is

the smallest working distance we can have between two notes.

Also, at this point we're going to stop

using A and start orientating ourselves around C.

And so, here is C on our stave.

The next note up on the line is D.

We can count from C to D, one, two.

It's a tone.

But if we're going to name it in a different

way, we can say it's an interval of a second.

One, two, a second.

There

are lots more intervals for us to look at, and

to do that we're actually going to go back to the keyboard.

>> So Richard's just talked to you about this interval, the second, from C to D.

But as he said, there's much more than that.

So let's have another look through that, and we'll do that within the octave.

So, we've got C to D.

There's a second, one, two.

We ve got C to E, 1 2 3.

That's a third.

C to F, a fourth.

C to G, a fifth.

C to A, a sixth.

C to B, a seventh.

And from C to C, we're not going to call that an eighth,

we're going to use the word that we've already used, which is octave.

But what we don't want you to think

is that intervals are only ever counted from C.

You know, we could go from G to A, is a second.

G to C is a fourth.

F to A is a third.

It's all about counting the space.

One, two, three.

F to A is a third.

Now, if we were to play B to C, for example.

We can see that this is a second.

One, two.

Okay.

Let's play F to G.

F to G.

There's a second.

One, two.

But actually what we see here is that the B to C

Is a second, but the C is only a semitone above B.

Whereas, for instance, F to G, 1, 2, is a second.

But G is actually a tone,

that's to say, two semitones above F.

Now, they are both seconds, and it's

perfectly correct to describe them that way.

But they do have a different quality.

We're going to talk about that more next week, so hold that thought, but

at the moment let's use that information and turn to think about scales.

So now I'm going to turn our attention to scales.

[flute plays scale]

There's one.

Scales are a pathway.

through an octave, okay?

It's like they're a pool of notes, a set of notes which melodies can be drawn from.

And if we can have that on the piano as well,

[MUSIC]

I could say if I was doing Julie Andrews.

Which is that is a Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, Do.

But I can also say it is, C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C.

That is why we have orientated ourselves to C, because we've now

found the scale of C Major, which I'm sure you've heard of.

Which is very common throughout the world.

Similarities exist in many cultures, and it's what

lots of music is built on, C Major.

>> And an important thing for you, looking at this, is when you're

looking at your piano, it's all the white notes from C to C.

So, Richard just said that this is an example of a major scale.

And actually, what's important here, is the relationship between the notes.

The relationship between all of these notes that are

available to us within this pool of notes.

And actually what we have to remember

here is the difference between tones and semitones.

So let's look at them again on the last stave.

C to D.

That's a tone, so I'm going to write T underneath here for tone.

D to E another tone.

So here is a T.

E to F there is no black note in between so this is a semi tone.

Which I will show with an S.

F to G a tone.

G to A a tone.

A to B, a tone.

And again, B to C, a semitone.

There's no blank note in between.

So, that gives us a pattern of Tone, Tone, Semitone, Tone, Tone, Tone, Semitone.

>> So, this pattern of two tones and then a semi-tone and three more

tones and a final semi-tone is what makes this scale sound the way it does.

Now we could say that each note on it's own doesn't actually mean that much, what's

important is how they sound next to each other in the context.

How they stand next to each other

and build up relationships between one another.

What this does is it gives us the flavor, gives us the overall sound.

And if we're going to talk about that formally in music

theoretic terms, it gives us the quality of the scale.

An important piece of terminology to remember, then, is that the

letter name that the scale is named after is called the tonic.

So, in the case of C Major, C is the tonic.

In the case of F Major, F is the tonic.

This major scale is also an example.

What is called a Diatonic Scale.

Dia between to tonics.

Diatonic scales are ones where we always have seven

notes with some pattern of five tones and two semitones.

Now, lets just have a little bit of the scale again on the staff.

And, remember we said C to D was a second.

Zack had pointed out that B to C was

also a second but one of the smaller ones:.

A semi tone.

So, I'm going to put this little dart sign here, to

show that between B and C is the semi tone.

Now, the other place we have a semi tone is between E and F.

So, I'm also going to put the dart sign there.

That will just help us to see, on

the stave, or major scale, where the semitones are.

So, there you have it, we found C Major.

Through our pattern of tones and

semitones, we've found our first major scale.

But of course, a scale isn't just a scale.

A scale helps to make music.

C major can give us this.

[Piano plays Auld Langs Syne]

Well, we are in Scotland.

C major can also give us this.

[Flute plays Twinkle Twinkle little star]

And don't think I'm being patronizing playing Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star.

It's a good exemplifier of the major scale.

It's also was a good enough tune for

Mozart to write a whole set of variations on.

While I'm on Mozart, that brings me to a little disclaimer.

In this course, we're dealing with musical

techniques that are known as the Common Practice.

And the Common Practice Era is basically Western Europe from 1600 to 1900.

So, it's very much the music of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, etc.

but there are other forms of music around the world.

That might use different techniques.

Where possible, we will reference them, but it has to be

said that the common practice is a good system to work from.

It applies to quite a lot of pop and rock, a lot of jazz,

quite a lot of folk music, and so that's our main focus in this course.

[BLANK_AUDIO]