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The Pattern of a Key

Lesson 11 from: Music Theory for Electronic Musicians

J. Anthony Allen

The Pattern of a Key

Lesson 11 from: Music Theory for Electronic Musicians

J. Anthony Allen

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Lesson Info

11. The Pattern of a Key

Next Lesson: Fifth Examples

Lesson Info

The Pattern of a Key

Okay, so what if you're not hearing it the same way I am? What if you're you don't hear this as the home that I'm talking about? That's totally okay. We all hear things differently, and that's just fun. Um, to hear this. This home idea. Sometimes it takes some some practice. Teoh be able to find that. But let's find Let's talk about another way. We can figure out the key other than just using our ear a little bit more of a mathematical way to look at it and just look at all the notes and know what key were in, um, To do this, there is a pattern. There's a pattern to all the notes in a key. And I'm going Teoh Teoh to really understand music theory. I think you really need toe to ah, memorize this pattern. I hate to say that I hate memorizing junk, but this is one of I think, two things that I'm gonna ask you to memorize in this entire class. Eso I reserve the please memorize this idea for when it's really needed. But this is one of them. This is something that you really need to know. S...

o Here's the pattern. Let me Ah, let me get rid of all this. Uh, I'm gonna keep my see here because we're gonna look at just the key of C for a minute, and then we'll start looking at different keys. The pattern is an alteration of whole steps in half steps. So a whole step means to notes, and now we're including the black notes. So from here to here is a whole step. That means there's one in between. From here to here is 1/2 step. There's nothing in between. So half step means there's nothing in between. Ah, whole step means there's one note in between and that includes all notes, white notes and black notes now, So the pattern is whole step, whole step half step. So the first half of of the pattern is whole step whole step half step, and then the pattern The second half of the pattern is full step, whole step, whole step half stuff that makes up the key. Those are all the notes that we are gonna work in this key. They always will fall into this pattern of whole step, whole step half step. Who will step whole step, whole step, half stuff. You know, that's a mouthful to say. Um, but that is the pattern. What we now have here is all the notes in the key, and we can keep going up higher. We can start the pattern over again here because we're on an active right. So now from here, I could go whole step, Whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step. Have stuff. Now I have two octaves, but they they repeat on that. See? So by doing this, the note that we started the pattern on is the key. So this is the key of C because of that pattern is happening. And it just so happens that you can see that the key of C follows all the white notes because of that pattern. Now, when we're looking at this when we're looking at all our possible notes in a key, we have stumbled upon something else here. We've also made a scale. If we put these out in a row thistles, what makes a major scale? The scale is just playing all the notes in the key one at a time. Let's get rid of this. So here is a C major scale. That's all the notes in the key. Just played one at a time. That's all the scale is now. One last thing about this We are working in a major key here, So this is a major scale. We are looking at the key of C major. Um, there are also minor keys and minor scales. Uh, in this class, we're only gonna talk about major keys and major scales. For now, in the part two of this class, I focus on minor keys and minor scales. But the only difference in a minor key is this pattern of whole step host of half step whole step whole step, whole step half step is ah, different. It's a different pattern, that's all. Um the rest. Everything else works exactly the same. And it makes a minor scale. So there's a difference between a major and minor. We'll talk about that when we get to cords, because we are gonna look at major and minor chords in this class. So let's figure out our ah, different key. Oh, let's get rid of all this. And let's say so. That was C major. Let's do D major. So all I'm gonna do is count up that pattern. So whole step. Whole step, half step, whole step, whole step whole step half step and you'll know you did it right, cause it'll begin and end on the same note An octave. Right? So I I put together the pattern according to the whole steps and half steps, and you can see this landed me on two black notes f sharp and C sharp. That's totally okay. That's just how the pattern fell together. So that's the way it is. So that is the key of D Major. Now the key of D Major has two black notes in it. Um, let's do one more. How about ah e? So right away we have to go to a black note because we have to go to a whole step. Right? So whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step half step. Here we have four black notes in it. All right. We have f sharp, G sharp, C sharp and D sharp. That's okay. That's the key of E. That's how the key of E works the key of E. Major

Ratings and Reviews

exoslime
 

this is great and very helpfull class, i make and wirte music for more than 2 decades and never gave much about theory, i trusted my feelings to what sound good and what not. Bu t recently i became interested but it all seemed very difficult to me and i didnt got the points behind music theory and how everyhing works together. This class was a game changer for me.. music theory is so simple if you have somebody to explain it in words so that you finally can understand it, and thats Anthony, he is a brilliant guy and he explains it in a simple way that you can easily understand whats going on. This is perfectly the case with this course, the sections are short and to the point, not much talking around and leaving the path, you can make fast progress end learn how music theory works, this is a 5 Star ***** course and hopefully there is more to come

Emane Filali
 

Fabulous course. As a person with dyslexia, trying to remember the notes and chords as letters only is impossible. I love the visual way the chords are demonstrated and explained. I was originally put off by the "electronic" aspect, thinking it was only for learning how to use piano edit roller. However, as a beginner in playing the piano, this course is applicable to all who want to learn and understand music theory in an interesting visual way. Looking forward to next lesson. Will definately be purchasing the course after. Fantastic tutor and course.

Giulio Lazaretti
 

Very good class!! Makes it much easier to understand and apply the rules of theory. Anthony is also very wise to suggest to trust your ears, even if what you've written doesn't fit into those same rules. I am so very grateful for you putting this together, Anthony, and for making it available for the general public, Creative Live. I am also very glad I was given the opportunity to learn english in my home country (Brazil), in which many barely know how to read and write in our own native language (portuguese) due to our public education being so bad (which, by its turn, has to do with the myriad of vile creatures that inhabit our representative chambers). Tks XoXo!

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