Page 46 - ESSENTIAL LISTENING TO MUSIC

Example 2.13 > major melody becomes minor
&4
& 24 ‰ œ j œ j œ j b œ b œ œ j b œ j œ j œ j œ œ
2 œ œj. œ˚j . j
LiSTeN TO . . . Example 2.13 online.
œ œ bœ œ
˙
come
Joy to
the world, the Lord is
You are my sun - shine, my on - ly sun - shine
& 34
Finally, a third, special scale sometimes sounds in music: a chromatic scale (Example 2.14), which makes use of all twelve pitches, equally divided, within the octave.
Example 2.14 > chromatic scale
&Chromaticscale w w #w w #w w #w w (w)
œœ
Hap-py birth - day to you
bœ
œ œ ˙.
DO . . . Listening Exercise 2.3, Hearing Major and Minor, online.
w #w w #w
Figure 2.4
Planets rotate around and are pulled toward the sun, just
as outlying pitches are pulled toward the tonic pitch.
Chromatic (from the Greek chroma, “color”) is a good word for this pattern be- cause the additional five pitches do indeed add color to the music. Unlike the major and minor scales, the chromatic scale is not employed for a complete melody, but only for a moment of twisting intensity. You can hear it in the first line of the song “White Christmas.”
When listening to any music, we take pleasure, consciously or not, in know- ing where we are. Again, the steps of the scale play a crucial role, orienting us during the listening experience. Virtually all the melodies that Western listeners have heard since birth have been in major or minor, so these two patterns are deeply ingrained. Intuitively, our brain recognizes the mode and hears one pitch
as central and the others as gravitating around it. That central, or home, pitch is called the tonic. The tonic is the first of the seven pitches of the scale and, consequently, the eighth and last as well. Melodies almost always end on the tonic, as can be seen in the familiar tunes given in Exam- ple 2.13, all of which happen to end on the pitch C. The tonic provides a point of focus and repose, a place to which you want to return (Figure 2.4).
The organization of music around a central pitch, the tonic, is called tonality. We say that such and such a piece is written in the tonality, and similarly the key, of C or of A (musicians use
24 chapter two rhythm, melody, and harmony
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>
Courtesy NASA/JPL
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