Reason why the Lydian mode should be the fundamental scale: it's the mode you get by stacking 5ths. Reason why the Ionian mode should be the fundamental scale: the root chord is intermingled with the only occurring tritone, ergo it resolves. Reason why the Aeolian mode should be the fundamental scale: same reason as with the Ionian mode, plus it's radially symmetric when written out from the 1st to the 7th scale degree. Reason why the Dorian mode should be the fundamental scale: it's the mode you get by stacking alternating minor and major thirds, plus it's radially symmetric. Reason why the Mixolydian, Phrygian, or Locrian mode should be the fundamental scale: to watch the world burn.
Lydian and Dorian really should be taught parallel to Major and Minor in basic music education because they have unique yet similar identities whilst being like the cool scales that hang out at the pool hall and ride motorcycles.
@@ThePi314Man Because every system we create to understand the world is basically just a lot of math* (because that's how the human brain organize and interprets things)
Something important to note is that the original just major scale (1, 9/8, 5/4, 4/3, 3/2, 5/3, 15/8) came into being way before triadic harmony was a thing. So the triadic construction, while interesting, is probably not a reason that early Europeans gravitated towards this specific scale.
@@MaggaraMarine Just intonation isn't a unified tuning system. Calling something just intonation just means that it uses a tuning with rational frequency ratios. So tuning scales using pure fifths IS just intonation.
@@alexshih3747 Sure, but it isn't the "just major scale" that you referenced in your first post. If Pythagorean tuning was the "original tuning", then I think the diatonic scale may in fact originate from the fact that it can be built by stacking fifths. But I'm really not sure on this, it's just a guess.
@@MaggaraMarine Pythagorean tuning in its original form definitely came before the just scale that I referenced (which was proposed by Ptolemy), but I haven't come across any evidence that it was used to tune the major scale before Ptolemy.
The notation being written around major reminds me of how Latin has very perfect divisions between nouns and verbs and basically fits the parts of speech really really well, but that's because the people who named all the parts of speech were studying Latin when they did it.
Nouns and verbs are pretty standard across languages; where it gets tricky are things like "been" in "has been written" and "up" and "with" in "put up with", both of which are part of the same word as the verb in Latin and don't get good analysis in parts of speech in languages that have them. (Some Latin passive constructions do use a helping verb, but they make sense as verb+adjective unlike many English constructions.)
How much of this is Major being special and how much is it just that it's the most common and thus most studied? It kind of reminds me of the interesting number paradox, which while sort of a joke, kind of makes a valid point that if you spend long enough staring at any arbitrary integer you can justify any number of fascinating properties about it. I wonder if, say, Lydian or the Elephant Scale somehow became the foundation of Western music, if they wouldn't have thousands of super foundational and interesting theoretical guarantees to talk about. Not to knock this video or the major scale of course.
Ionian is considered the root mode. The most important and tonal mode. It's the basis of tonal harmony. It's the only mode where its main chord is exactly the only only that can be the perfect resolution for the tritone. That means, the only chord that contains the notes of the diatonic contrary montion halfstep resolution of the tritone. When you try to solve the tritone using contrary montion with only a halfstep movement, only one way is possible that resides inside the diatonic scale, and that resolutions goes into the root and the third of the I chord of Ionian. That means that in each other mode, the best resolution of the tritone will go to one chord that is not the I of this mode. We could also see it in another way. Take the C Ionian scale and all the relative scales (D dorian, A aeolian, F lydian, and so on), the tritone happens between the notes F and B. Solving it by halfstep and contrary motion and keeping inside the scale will lead us to solve it by going up from B to C and going down from F to E. What are these notes intervals if we consider the I chord in each mode? For the C Ionian, these notes are the octave and major third. For the D dorian, these notes are the minor seventh and major second. For E phrygian, these notes are the minor sixth and the octave. For F lydian these notes are the major seventh and the fifth. For the G lydian these notes the perfect fourth and the major sixth. For the A aeolian, these notes are the minor third and perfect fifth. For the B locrian, these notes are the minor second and perfect fourth. In terms of consonance, the best resolution is for C ionian, followed by A aeolian and then followed by F lydian. So this is what happens if we solve the tritone the way it's supposed to be solve but use another chord with the resolution as chord tones or tensions. We can get chords like Fmaj7 or Dmin9 or G13. Which are all beautiful chords that can feel incredibly fitting if achieved by the resolution of the tritone. Try it.
I'm a simple man, I'm composing, I'm stuck, I alt tab out of Cubase, realise 12tone uploaded a new video, watch it, suddenly realise how to unstuck myself. Cheers to you.
On the one hand, there's a lot of circular reasoning in this video since many of these properties are based on the major scale. On the other, it's worth taking the time to appreciate what so much of music theory is built on taking for granted.
It’s also worth noting that the Ionian mode of the major scale is the only mode other than its relative minor in which a tritone does not occur over the tonic or its triadic - or base-chordal - factors (Mixolydian has one over its third, Dorian over its third, Locrian over its root, Lydian over its root, and Phrygian over its fifth). Arguably the fifth is extraneous as it only strengthens the root’s sonority without adding any modal color, so Phrygian, Ionian, and Aeolian arguably form a tripartite of modes with this quality. They are all considered tonic modes.
The raised 4th was used pretty frequently in the sort of standard mideval cadence of especially the 14th century. It was like a Bm/D going to a C power chord (no thirds in the "I-chord" during the middle ages, atleast not in the beginning or the end of a phrase or song).
If you want to start learning some theory and have a slight idea of what he's talking about, he's done a basics series that goes from the absolute basics like "what is a note" to the basics of functional harmony and keys.
Maximal evenness can be easily extended to other scales, but doing so requires leaving the 12 TET ghetto. Pick a "generating interval." In the case of the major scale, the generating interval is a perfect fifth, and in 12 TET, it's a tempered perfect fifth. In 12 TET, the only non-trivial generator is 7, because 5 and 7 are the only numbers (other than 1 and 11) which are less than 12 and coprime to 12, and 5 generates the same scales as 7. Let's go to a different tuning, like 17 TET. Since 17 is prime, every choice for a generator is non-trivial. Let's choose 4 steps of 17 TET/EDO. Keep moving up by 4 steps and, whenever you exceed the octave, reduce back to the octave by subtracting 17. You'll notice that, at each step, the number of interval sizes between any 2 adjacent notes is always 3 or fewer. Sometimes, it's only 2. These special points are called "moments of symmetry," or "MOS scales," for short. MOS scales are always maximally even, no matter what. They always have only 2 basic step sizes, 1 large (called "L") and one small (called "s"). The distribution of these steps is always maximally even, being as close to uniformly distributed as possible. The major scale is an MOS scale called 5L2s, because it has 5 large steps (the whole steps) and 2 small steps (the half-steps). Every MOS scale is maximally even, but not every MOS scale is proper. The propriety of an MOS scale depends on the ratio of L to s. If L/s is less than 2, the scale is strictly proper. If L/s is exactly 2, the scale is proper but not strictly proper. If L/s is greater than 2, the scale is improper. 17 EDO has its own 5L2s major scale, but because 5L + 2s is 17 instead of 12, L = 3 and s = 1. This means that the 17 EDO major scale is improper. This manifests as the augmented fourth being larger than the diminished fifth. 17 EDO has 2 tritone intervals, and the tritone corresponding to an augmented fourth is wider than the one corresponding to the diminished fifth, making the 17 EDO major scale improper. 19 EDO, on the other hand, has a 5L2s major scale which is strictly proper. The solution to 5L + 2s = 19 is L = 3, s = 2. In 19 EDO, the augmented fourth is smaller than the diminished fifth. Here are the MOS scales generated by 4 steps of 17 EDO, which is a kind of minor 3rd: 0 4 17 (1L1s, L = 13, s = 4) Improper 0 4 8 17 (1L2s, L = 9, s = 4) Improper 0 4 8 12 17 (1L3s, L = 5, s = 4) Proper 0 4 8 12 16 17 (4L1s, L = 4, s = 1) Improper 0 3 4 7 8 11 12 15 16 17 (4L5s, L = 3, s = 1) Improper 0 2 3 4 6 7 8 10 11 12 14 15 16 17 (4L9s, L = 2, s = 1) Proper Everything in-between here is invalid since L = 2, s = 1 continues to hold. Nothing in here would be an MOS if we perturbed the generator even slightly. "MOS" scales appear here due to the degeneracy of exactly equally dividing the octave into 17 pieces. The same thing happens in 12 EDO with "MOS" scales between the major scale and chromatic scale, both generated by fifths. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 (17L0s, L = 1, s = 0)
The more I listened to this, the more I realised we take for granted the 12 notes. Why 12? What's so good about those relationships? What's the significance of a tone v.s. a semitone? Questions I've never seen answered, if he's addressed this elsewhere, I'd love to know
I mean the Ionian major scale _is_ symmetrical, with the second degree as its axis. It's symmetrical even down to note functions and chromatic notes in between. Take C major. D is its axis of symmetry: Ab-A-Bb-B-C-Db-D-Eb-E-F-Gb-G-Ab !-t-!-d-t-!-n-!-t-d-!-t-! t = tonic d = dissonant n = neutral ! = chromatic
I'm sorry to be nitpicky again, but you also have a mistake in this video - you said "having Myhill's property guarantees that the scale has all sorts of cool properties too, including being maximally even" (5:41), but that isn't true. Although Myhill's property guarantees many cool properties, like the deep scale property (if you only include intervals that actually occur in the scale), or being a well formed collection, being maximally even is not one of them. for example, if you start your scale in 6 semitones and then finish with a tritone (C, C#, ..., F#) it satisfies Myhill's property (the "seconds" are either a half steps or tritones, the "thirds" are either whole tones or fifths etc.), but it's clearly not maximally even. You may think that Myhill and propriety together imply maximally evenness, but that isn't the case either, because, for example, if you divide the octave to 17 notes (so you're working inside 17edo) and make a major-like scale with 3 edo steps as the major second and 1 edo step as the minor second (0-3-6-7-10-13-16) you get a proper scale with Myhill's property but it isn't maximally even - this title goes to another scale called "mohajira" that has 4 steps which are composed of 2 edo steps - 0-3-5-8-10-13-15. I think Myhill's property and propriety imply maximally evenness in 12edo, but it's just because it's a bit of a degenerate case being such a small number. Apart for that this video is great and thank you again for all of the other amazing videos you have on this channel, and for this video as well.
Lydian as the basis makes sense because it is most similar to the actual harmonic series however I agree the Major scale has more functional use as a composer which may be partly why Major won out over Lydian for popularity
You'd be suprised by how many great sounds derive from the major scales. I'm currently writing a piece entitled The Abandoned Skyscraper using the key of E flat. Add in a few accidentals and the chords and mood of the piece take it to new heights. Sometimes the basics of music theory can add up to great music making. Also, choosing these scales-keys make transposing far easier than writing in a remote one with lots of sharps or flats.
This may not get noticed, but that would be amazing if you made a video about how D’angelo harmonizes in his music and how to replicate it. His music is rich with interesting harmonies that seem so simple yet are probably complex. It would also help for novices who are trying to harmonize like that
Chiming in before watching too far in. Major is like the vanilla ice cream, original doritos flavor. It's popular for a reason, and there's nothing wrong with it, it just feels a bit like the default option, and how many times do you see that being well loved? It doesn't matter how nice the default is, people want to personalize their music and sound to represent them, and it can feel kind of hard to do that if you're picking the most common things.
For practical reasons I always divide my scale analysis - it has a melodic and a harmonic part. I would have appreciated it to have this division here as well, as I think it explains, why dorian or lydian work super nice (melodic-wise) whereas all the arguments you used relating to the weird chords explain why major and minor are so much more important. Maybe that's just a matter of taste though... - cause I really love your videos still!
I always felt Mixolydian was the most natural scale because of its relation to the overtone series. With a fundamental G, the unique overtones in order are D, B, F (not F#) A B The overtones above that are too out of tune to be much use, and do leave two large gaps, so we have choices for C or C# and E or Eb filling in the gaps, assuming a 12 note system, which the overtones imply IMO. C makes more sense than C# because the fourth is the complement of the fifth, but the C# is also possible, which may be why so many people in the comments seem to like Lydian. (Of course, with the F, this would be Lydian Dominant, which I like a lot). Using E instead of Eb give a perfect fifth above A, which is nice, and you also made some nice points in the video about the 6th. Using the Eb would give the 5th mode of melodic minor, Mixolydian b6. When discussing the "best" modes, neither you nor the commenters give melodic minor any love. I think it deserves mention. Anyway, C and E won out over time as the notes that got filled in. I feel like the other modes are just rearrangements of Mixolydian. Ionian became popular because of the characteristics you mention in this excellent video.
If we rigged aeolian by turning it into harmonic minor to resolve like major (with the natural 7 rising to the root and the 4 falling to the third.) Are there any other ways we could have rigged the other modes to resolve like major?
In harmonic minor or any minor scale for that matter the 4 can’t resolve to 3 because it’s a whole step above it. If you lowered the fourth to be a half step above the third then you wouldn’t really have a fourth at all. You’d basically have both thirds. If you raised the third to be a half step below the fourth then the scale would no longer be minor.
@@deadSalesman_GD but in practice the 4th does resolve down to the minor 3rd. For example a perfect cadence in a minor key F and B (G7) resolve to Eb and C (Cmin)
In practice, yes, but the authentic cadence from V7 to i isn’t as strong as the same cadence in major. The fourth scale degree no longer pulls downward because it isn’t a half step above the third. This is why the picardy third is such a powerful device when used in an authentic cadence . It returns the fourth to a source of tension and then resolves that tension through the authentic cadence. Additionally it subverts expectations strengthening the cadence further. I will say that you do make a great point about what the common practice is but I would argue that common practice treats minor like major fat too often.
@@deadSalesman_GD Even though the minor resolution is weaker it still strengthens the V to I realationship by introducting a tritone on the V. My question was, are there any ways people at the start of the common practice period could have made the old modes fit a V to I resolution. For example, you couldn't on lydian as it would involve flattening the 4 to a 4 natural thus making it identical to major.
The reason we don't wan't a fully distributed scale, is because opposite notes on the 12 note circle form a tritone. Thus if you make the whole tone scale, you just get a bunch of tritones
Merci for this. I have a question that no one has yet answered. How many musicians are colour blind? Is there a barrier for not seeing colours correctly and not having musical talent? I jokingly say that I was born with two left ears. But started the piano at 65 years of age, and want to change that.
What if Lydian had been the primary scale? Then music would be constructed out of fifths and the natural chord progression would be II-V-I. All of our traditional pre-dominant chords would be considered modal mixture.
Very nice video. There were some things in there I wasn't aware of. There's so much out there. In addition to excellent ideas already covered in this video, I'm also a fan of the Tonnetz Lattice descriptions of scales, where the major and natural minor scales essentially form trapezoids, where, in that reference, the 'shape' of a scale provides a very nice visual way of thinking about scale properties. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonnetz
Can you do a video on the modes of the neapolitan major scale? It, along with all the modes of the usual major and ascending melodic minor, used to be my favourite scales since they were the only heptatonic scales whose biggest intervals were no bigger than a whole tone.
You are a volcano of musical knowledge, vulcanizing transparent lava gems and launching them into the red hot stream of consciousness. I must don my magma hat and go prospecting. ( I know- vulcanization is a rubber hardening process ..... artistic license ya know) : )
Ok so at 0:55 you played a chord, I said to myself “that sounds an awful lot like the opening chord to ‘Baby I don’t know’ by Vulfpeck” and its in the exact same key. I’m pretty sure that’s not perfect pitch, but is there a name for that?
How in the world you understand all of this?? Do you attend music college or self taught?? Cause honestly i want to analyze music just like you do but just don't know where to start🙄😅😅
I've been watching this dude's videos for a while now because I think this stuff is super interesting, but I really only pick up bits & pieces because my basic knowledge of music theory is, err... not there. Like... Idek what a "perfect fifth" is, but I understand some basics about scales, the sqrt(12) property we're lucky enough to have granting us our 12-note system, harmonic series', what makes something consonant, etc. I have a super physicsish & mathy background that helps me understand _some_ things, but I really should backtrack a little and catch up so that I can get the more practical bits as well. Any recommendations for a good place to pound the basics into my head? Should I just Wikipedia the terms with which I'm unfamiliar, or is there a more well-structured way to inject all of that upstairs? Any tips pointing me in the right direction would be appreciated, my dudes (:
If there was such thing as a "best scale" then there probably be some kind of objectively "best piece of music" or something like that... obviously doesn't make sense lol
Not an expert in reading music , grew up having a great ear and just found with drumming I could listen and copy , so totally self taught ,SO with my back ground outa the way Please tell me what's with the left to right writing is not Arabic 🙄 and as far as I remember seen music written left to right ,I'm probably missing something obvious but like I said total self taught with a photographic listening 👂, so please explain to a written music novice, enjoy the videos can't do any damage learning musical theory 🤗🤗
Hi! So the reason I work from right to left actually doesn't have anything to do with music notation: It's because I'm left-handed. If I were to draw from left to right, my hand would be constantly covering the thing I just did, making it harder to follow the overall visual flow of the video.
@@12tone thanks never thought about that,and did notice you are left handed but for some reason I thought lefties still wrote left to right but makes sense, great site , some goes over my head due to a non traditional music education but VERY interesting to say the least ...
@@luiswagener5596 Interesting. Do you play brass in Eb or something, or are you just comfortable there? I myself (a guitarist) am quite comfortable in A, D, and E just as a result of the layout of my instrument.
I think Cory has mentioned that he tries not to use C Major because it's sort of the quote unquote "default" scale because it has no accidentals and it can be easy to see patterns and symmetry that don't actually exist due to E/F and B/C being half steps.
This is a major issue indeed. Yuck, that pun was majorly lame and is in urgent need for major surgery performed by people who majored in preventing major crimes against language! Anyway, if we populated a village with different scales, it wouldn't be a major surprise if Major ended up being elected mayor. Now, let's address the elephant in the room: your channel keeps on rocking, and I love your videos! Congratulations.
I've learned more music theory by watching these videos for a couple of months than I had in my entire life up to this point. One of these eons: get a real book on the topic... I want to learn more
@@ВадимБаев-с9в what i meant by my comment is that composers just thought of other scales as "bad" because they didn't have tension/resolution in them, so they were really limiting themselves from so many awesome scales they could work in and made everything sound pretty much the same with major. Also now that they dont use the dominant chord i dont see why they still talk about other scales being problematic for not having tension/resolution.
This is some fascinating stuff, and you explain it well! As someone that primarily uses UA-cam as time-wasting background noise, I commend you for how your point about the only asymmetrically maximally distributed scales have 5 or 7 notes was so interesting it made me transcend my nature and rewind the video so I could hear it again (forgive the run-on sentence).
Reason why the Lydian mode should be the fundamental scale: it's the mode you get by stacking 5ths.
Reason why the Ionian mode should be the fundamental scale: the root chord is intermingled with the only occurring tritone, ergo it resolves.
Reason why the Aeolian mode should be the fundamental scale: same reason as with the Ionian mode, plus it's radially symmetric when written out from the 1st to the 7th scale degree.
Reason why the Dorian mode should be the fundamental scale: it's the mode you get by stacking alternating minor and major thirds, plus it's radially symmetric.
Reason why the Mixolydian, Phrygian, or Locrian mode should be the fundamental scale: to watch the world burn.
It's really fun to write phrygian melodies tho, that b2 resolves so nicely to the 1
Lydian and Dorian really should be taught parallel to Major and Minor in basic music education because they have unique yet similar identities whilst being like the cool scales that hang out at the pool hall and ride motorcycles.
Locrian for President! MAKE MUSIC GREAT AGAIN
Hey, phrygian is cool.
A lot of Turkish, Arabic, Persian, and Mediterranean pop uses it and some of that stuff bops hard.
No it should TOTALLY be locrian because you get it by stacking 4ths. He said 4ths are the same as 5ths, didn't he?
This is weird...this is the same scale I thought I invented the other day...only I called it Mixolydian #7...this is a major development!
"What are you playing there?"
"Oh, just some Mixolydian #7 arpeggios."
"Ooh, fancy!"
It's shockingly similar to Lydian b4.
@@henryrichard7619 and locrian #2 #3 4 #5 #6 #7
I thought it was minor #3 #6 #7
Minor romani natural-e natural-f natural-a natural-b.
I never get used to the Cthulhu elephants.
I never get used to the nuclear explosion looking trees lol
Omg why is music theory just Abstract Algebra
Definitely some parts in there that made me think of ring theory.
I'm literally avoiding studying for my final by watching this what the hell
It's actually applied, non abstract algebra
Because everything is basically just a lot of math.
@@ThePi314Man Because every system we create to understand the world is basically just a lot of math*
(because that's how the human brain organize and interprets things)
Something important to note is that the original just major scale (1, 9/8, 5/4, 4/3, 3/2, 5/3, 15/8) came into being way before triadic harmony was a thing. So the triadic construction, while interesting, is probably not a reason that early Europeans gravitated towards this specific scale.
True, although it's a very similar process to hexachord construction, which goes back a lot further.
But wasn't the diatonic scale originally tuned in fifths, not in just intonation?
@@MaggaraMarine Just intonation isn't a unified tuning system. Calling something just intonation just means that it uses a tuning with rational frequency ratios. So tuning scales using pure fifths IS just intonation.
@@alexshih3747
Sure, but it isn't the "just major scale" that you referenced in your first post.
If Pythagorean tuning was the "original tuning", then I think the diatonic scale may in fact originate from the fact that it can be built by stacking fifths. But I'm really not sure on this, it's just a guess.
@@MaggaraMarine Pythagorean tuning in its original form definitely came before the just scale that I referenced (which was proposed by Ptolemy), but I haven't come across any evidence that it was used to tune the major scale before Ptolemy.
"The I chord [I] shares a note in common with both the IV chord [IV] and the V chord [V]"
Me: "PLEASE RESOLVE THIS!!!!"
they had the courtesy to play the root note afterwards at least
Just imagine it’s a IV -> bVII -> I and it sounds fine
Sorta
Starry Sunrose
that was satisfying enough for me
The notation being written around major reminds me of how Latin has very perfect divisions between nouns and verbs and basically fits the parts of speech really really well, but that's because the people who named all the parts of speech were studying Latin when they did it.
Nouns and verbs are pretty standard across languages; where it gets tricky are things like "been" in "has been written" and "up" and "with" in "put up with", both of which are part of the same word as the verb in Latin and don't get good analysis in parts of speech in languages that have them. (Some Latin passive constructions do use a helping verb, but they make sense as verb+adjective unlike many English constructions.)
"Some people think Lydian should be the fundamental western scale but I'm not convinced."
*George Russell wants to know your location*
How much of this is Major being special and how much is it just that it's the most common and thus most studied? It kind of reminds me of the interesting number paradox, which while sort of a joke, kind of makes a valid point that if you spend long enough staring at any arbitrary integer you can justify any number of fascinating properties about it. I wonder if, say, Lydian or the Elephant Scale somehow became the foundation of Western music, if they wouldn't have thousands of super foundational and interesting theoretical guarantees to talk about.
Not to knock this video or the major scale of course.
Ionian is considered the root mode. The most important and tonal mode. It's the basis of tonal harmony. It's the only mode where its main chord is exactly the only only that can be the perfect resolution for the tritone. That means, the only chord that contains the notes of the diatonic contrary montion halfstep resolution of the tritone. When you try to solve the tritone using contrary montion with only a halfstep movement, only one way is possible that resides inside the diatonic scale, and that resolutions goes into the root and the third of the I chord of Ionian. That means that in each other mode, the best resolution of the tritone will go to one chord that is not the I of this mode.
We could also see it in another way. Take the C Ionian scale and all the relative scales (D dorian, A aeolian, F lydian, and so on), the tritone happens between the notes F and B. Solving it by halfstep and contrary motion and keeping inside the scale will lead us to solve it by going up from B to C and going down from F to E. What are these notes intervals if we consider the I chord in each mode? For the C Ionian, these notes are the octave and major third. For the D dorian, these notes are the minor seventh and major second. For E phrygian, these notes are the minor sixth and the octave. For F lydian these notes are the major seventh and the fifth. For the G lydian these notes the perfect fourth and the major sixth. For the A aeolian, these notes are the minor third and perfect fifth. For the B locrian, these notes are the minor second and perfect fourth. In terms of consonance, the best resolution is for C ionian, followed by A aeolian and then followed by F lydian.
So this is what happens if we solve the tritone the way it's supposed to be solve but use another chord with the resolution as chord tones or tensions. We can get chords like Fmaj7 or Dmin9 or G13. Which are all beautiful chords that can feel incredibly fitting if achieved by the resolution of the tritone. Try it.
This is basically like the wau video by vihart with less mystery.
And with less sarcasm.
@@FernieCanto and elephants instead of triangles?
I'm a simple man, I'm composing, I'm stuck, I alt tab out of Cubase, realise 12tone uploaded a new video, watch it, suddenly realise how to unstuck myself.
Cheers to you.
I like using Lydian melodically over Ionian harmony. Takes some thinking to avoid clashing 4ths but it’s no more weird than melodic minor
Can we have a second video with the things you left out in this one? :) It's just fascinating.
On the one hand, there's a lot of circular reasoning in this video since many of these properties are based on the major scale. On the other, it's worth taking the time to appreciate what so much of music theory is built on taking for granted.
It’s also worth noting that the Ionian mode of the major scale is the only mode other than its relative minor in which a tritone does not occur over the tonic or its triadic - or base-chordal - factors (Mixolydian has one over its third, Dorian over its third, Locrian over its root, Lydian over its root, and Phrygian over its fifth). Arguably the fifth is extraneous as it only strengthens the root’s sonority without adding any modal color, so Phrygian, Ionian, and Aeolian arguably form a tripartite of modes with this quality. They are all considered tonic modes.
The raised 4th was used pretty frequently in the sort of standard mideval cadence of especially the 14th century. It was like a Bm/D going to a C power chord (no thirds in the "I-chord" during the middle ages, atleast not in the beginning or the end of a phrase or song).
I’m always completely lost when watching your vidéos cause I have no idea what you’re talking about but I don’t know why, I’m always fascinated
If you watch enough you start to pick up some stuff and you can begin to make some sense of it.
If you want to start learning some theory and have a slight idea of what he's talking about, he's done a basics series that goes from the absolute basics like "what is a note" to the basics of functional harmony and keys.
Maximal evenness can be easily extended to other scales, but doing so requires leaving the 12 TET ghetto. Pick a "generating interval." In the case of the major scale, the generating interval is a perfect fifth, and in 12 TET, it's a tempered perfect fifth. In 12 TET, the only non-trivial generator is 7, because 5 and 7 are the only numbers (other than 1 and 11) which are less than 12 and coprime to 12, and 5 generates the same scales as 7.
Let's go to a different tuning, like 17 TET. Since 17 is prime, every choice for a generator is non-trivial. Let's choose 4 steps of 17 TET/EDO. Keep moving up by 4 steps and, whenever you exceed the octave, reduce back to the octave by subtracting 17. You'll notice that, at each step, the number of interval sizes between any 2 adjacent notes is always 3 or fewer. Sometimes, it's only 2. These special points are called "moments of symmetry," or "MOS scales," for short. MOS scales are always maximally even, no matter what. They always have only 2 basic step sizes, 1 large (called "L") and one small (called "s"). The distribution of these steps is always maximally even, being as close to uniformly distributed as possible. The major scale is an MOS scale called 5L2s, because it has 5 large steps (the whole steps) and 2 small steps (the half-steps).
Every MOS scale is maximally even, but not every MOS scale is proper. The propriety of an MOS scale depends on the ratio of L to s. If L/s is less than 2, the scale is strictly proper. If L/s is exactly 2, the scale is proper but not strictly proper. If L/s is greater than 2, the scale is improper. 17 EDO has its own 5L2s major scale, but because 5L + 2s is 17 instead of 12, L = 3 and s = 1. This means that the 17 EDO major scale is improper. This manifests as the augmented fourth being larger than the diminished fifth. 17 EDO has 2 tritone intervals, and the tritone corresponding to an augmented fourth is wider than the one corresponding to the diminished fifth, making the 17 EDO major scale improper. 19 EDO, on the other hand, has a 5L2s major scale which is strictly proper. The solution to 5L + 2s = 19 is L = 3, s = 2. In 19 EDO, the augmented fourth is smaller than the diminished fifth.
Here are the MOS scales generated by 4 steps of 17 EDO, which is a kind of minor 3rd:
0 4 17 (1L1s, L = 13, s = 4) Improper
0 4 8 17 (1L2s, L = 9, s = 4) Improper
0 4 8 12 17 (1L3s, L = 5, s = 4) Proper
0 4 8 12 16 17 (4L1s, L = 4, s = 1) Improper
0 3 4 7 8 11 12 15 16 17 (4L5s, L = 3, s = 1) Improper
0 2 3 4 6 7 8 10 11 12 14 15 16 17 (4L9s, L = 2, s = 1) Proper
Everything in-between here is invalid since L = 2, s = 1 continues to hold. Nothing in here would be an MOS if we perturbed the generator even slightly. "MOS" scales appear here due to the degeneracy of exactly equally dividing the octave into 17 pieces. The same thing happens in 12 EDO with "MOS" scales between the major scale and chromatic scale, both generated by fifths.
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 (17L0s, L = 1, s = 0)
The more I listened to this, the more I realised we take for granted the 12 notes. Why 12? What's so good about those relationships? What's the significance of a tone v.s. a semitone? Questions I've never seen answered, if he's addressed this elsewhere, I'd love to know
The text at 11:06 says “I know this isn't Jim Henson, but still.”
I mean the Ionian major scale _is_ symmetrical, with the second degree as its axis. It's symmetrical even down to note functions and chromatic notes in between.
Take C major. D is its axis of symmetry:
Ab-A-Bb-B-C-Db-D-Eb-E-F-Gb-G-Ab
!-t-!-d-t-!-n-!-t-d-!-t-!
t = tonic
d = dissonant
n = neutral
! = chromatic
This might be my favorite yet! Thanks!
can you do an in depth analysis of Radiohead paranoid android?
Thanks 12Tone. Heliotonic is a fun word.
I'm sorry to be nitpicky again, but you also have a mistake in this video - you said "having Myhill's property guarantees that the scale has all sorts of cool properties too, including being maximally even" (5:41), but that isn't true. Although Myhill's property guarantees many cool properties, like the deep scale property (if you only include intervals that actually occur in the scale), or being a well formed collection, being maximally even is not one of them. for example, if you start your scale in 6 semitones and then finish with a tritone (C, C#, ..., F#) it satisfies Myhill's property (the "seconds" are either a half steps or tritones, the "thirds" are either whole tones or fifths etc.), but it's clearly not maximally even. You may think that Myhill and propriety together imply maximally evenness, but that isn't the case either, because, for example, if you divide the octave to 17 notes (so you're working inside 17edo) and make a major-like scale with 3 edo steps as the major second and 1 edo step as the minor second (0-3-6-7-10-13-16) you get a proper scale with Myhill's property but it isn't maximally even - this title goes to another scale called "mohajira" that has 4 steps which are composed of 2 edo steps - 0-3-5-8-10-13-15. I think Myhill's property and propriety imply maximally evenness in 12edo, but it's just because it's a bit of a degenerate case being such a small number.
Apart for that this video is great and thank you again for all of the other amazing videos you have on this channel, and for this video as well.
Whoops, you are correct, good catch!
Lydian as the basis makes sense because it is most similar to the actual harmonic series however I agree the Major scale has more functional use as a composer which may be partly why Major won out over Lydian for popularity
You'd be suprised by how many great sounds derive from the major scales. I'm currently writing a piece entitled The Abandoned Skyscraper using the key of E flat. Add in a few accidentals and the chords and mood of the piece take it to new heights. Sometimes the basics of music theory can add up to great music making. Also, choosing these scales-keys make transposing far easier than writing in a remote one with lots of sharps or flats.
This may not get noticed, but that would be amazing if you made a video about how D’angelo harmonizes in his music and how to replicate it. His music is rich with interesting harmonies that seem so simple yet are probably complex. It would also help for novices who are trying to harmonize like that
Absolutely brilliant analysis!
Very nice. Please do the video about the deep scale property.
Chiming in before watching too far in. Major is like the vanilla ice cream, original doritos flavor. It's popular for a reason, and there's nothing wrong with it, it just feels a bit like the default option, and how many times do you see that being well loved? It doesn't matter how nice the default is, people want to personalize their music and sound to represent them, and it can feel kind of hard to do that if you're picking the most common things.
This was so helpful and well done 👏👏
Thank you!!
Very legit video, thanks for going deep, I love this math stuf
“I’m not saying the major scale is the best”
Me: Well thank goodness because it’s obviously Lydian :|
Myhills property also applies to all the modes.
I'm very excited for potentially some more diatonic set theory on this channel!
9:12 The 3rd degree IS in the tonic triad
For practical reasons I always divide my scale analysis - it has a melodic and a harmonic part. I would have appreciated it to have this division here as well, as I think it explains, why dorian or lydian work super nice (melodic-wise) whereas all the arguments you used relating to the weird chords explain why major and minor are so much more important.
Maybe that's just a matter of taste though... - cause I really love your videos still!
I always felt Mixolydian was the most natural scale because of its relation to the overtone series.
With a fundamental G, the unique overtones in order are
D, B, F (not F#) A B
The overtones above that are too out of tune to be much use, and do leave two large gaps,
so we have choices for C or C# and E or Eb filling in the gaps, assuming a 12 note system, which the overtones imply IMO.
C makes more sense than C# because the fourth is the complement of the fifth, but the C# is also possible, which may be why so many people in the comments seem to like Lydian. (Of course, with the F, this would be Lydian Dominant, which I like a lot).
Using E instead of Eb give a perfect fifth above A, which is nice, and you also made some nice points in the video about the 6th.
Using the Eb would give the 5th mode of melodic minor, Mixolydian b6. When discussing the "best" modes, neither you nor the commenters give melodic minor any love. I think it deserves mention.
Anyway, C and E won out over time as the notes that got filled in.
I feel like the other modes are just rearrangements of Mixolydian.
Ionian became popular because of the characteristics you mention in this excellent video.
understanding (don't fear) the reaper
If we rigged aeolian by turning it into harmonic minor to resolve like major (with the natural 7 rising to the root and the 4 falling to the third.) Are there any other ways we could have rigged the other modes to resolve like major?
In harmonic minor or any minor scale for that matter the 4 can’t resolve to 3 because it’s a whole step above it. If you lowered the fourth to be a half step above the third then you wouldn’t really have a fourth at all. You’d basically have both thirds. If you raised the third to be a half step below the fourth then the scale would no longer be minor.
@@deadSalesman_GD but in practice the 4th does resolve down to the minor 3rd. For example a perfect cadence in a minor key F and B (G7) resolve to Eb and C (Cmin)
In practice, yes, but the authentic cadence from V7 to i isn’t as strong as the same cadence in major. The fourth scale degree no longer pulls downward because it isn’t a half step above the third. This is why the picardy third is such a powerful device when used in an authentic cadence . It returns the fourth to a source of tension and then resolves that tension through the authentic cadence. Additionally it subverts expectations strengthening the cadence further. I will say that you do make a great point about what the common practice is but I would argue that common practice treats minor like major fat too often.
@@deadSalesman_GD Even though the minor resolution is weaker it still strengthens the V to I realationship by introducting a tritone on the V. My question was, are there any ways people at the start of the common practice period could have made the old modes fit a V to I resolution. For example, you couldn't on lydian as it would involve flattening the 4 to a 4 natural thus making it identical to major.
True good point about the tritone. I guess I misunderstood the question but hey still love a nice Theory talk
> "Does anyone actually read these descriptions anyway?"
I always read them before watching.
The reason we don't wan't a fully distributed scale, is because opposite notes on the 12 note circle form a tritone. Thus if you make the whole tone scale, you just get a bunch of tritones
You get locrean by stacking 4ths and it’s def not our natural scale, so I can’t think of any reason Lydian should be. Still a pretty scale tho
Merci for this.
I have a question that no one has yet answered. How many musicians are colour blind? Is there a barrier for not seeing colours correctly and not having musical talent?
I jokingly say that I was born with two left ears. But started the piano at 65 years of age, and want to change that.
This reminds me of ViHart's Wau video. Good job!
Anyone else see that messed up page at 4:43
This is beautiful!
Could you do an analysis of the maple leaf rag?
What if Lydian had been the primary scale? Then music would be constructed out of fifths and the natural chord progression would be II-V-I. All of our traditional pre-dominant chords would be considered modal mixture.
I have a newfound appreciation for the major scale, thanks!
Awesome!
Very nice video. There were some things in there I wasn't aware of. There's so much out there. In addition to excellent ideas already covered in this video, I'm also a fan of the Tonnetz Lattice descriptions of scales, where the major and natural minor scales essentially form trapezoids, where, in that reference, the 'shape' of a scale provides a very nice visual way of thinking about scale properties. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonnetz
Can you do a video on the modes of the neapolitan major scale? It, along with all the modes of the usual major and ascending melodic minor, used to be my favourite scales since they were the only heptatonic scales whose biggest intervals were no bigger than a whole tone.
I'm pretty sure he's done a video on Neapolitan Major before. Not the modes but just the scale.
I thought the traid worked to sound consonent because in the overtones of the tonic the fifth and 3rd were more common than other overtones?
Yep! That's actually a direct result of the ratio being 4:5:6. Simpler ratios appear more frequently in the overtone series.
12tone Ah fair enough, thanks for the clarification haha
wait, so may the Fourth and revenge of the Fifth is actually the same thing?
Pedantry ensues:
I feel like most of this video is rather an appeal for the diatonic scale than the major scale.
(major being a mode of the diatonic scale in that case)
Really like your videos awesome explanations and drawings...Would love to see you analyze a Schnittke piece really love his work...Thanks!
Mind blown....
You should do a video on limit-tuning in intonation! I use 19 limit!
I know it’s two late. But we really should change the name of the note we call “C” to “A”. That would make a whole lot more sense.
You are a volcano of musical knowledge, vulcanizing transparent lava gems and launching them into the red hot stream of consciousness. I must don my magma hat and go prospecting. ( I know- vulcanization is a rubber hardening process ..... artistic license ya know) : )
Mmm. I know some of these words.
@6:52
So THAT'S how Dream Theater write their songs!
I think it would be great if you did a Welcome to the Machine video.
CuriosityStream:
"There was a problem:
This promotion is not available through Paypal."
Would've even signed, but hey. Fuck PayPal, right?
This reminds me of vihart's wau video
Idk if you have to be a kid when you start music, or if im just stupid, but this stuff is really hard to understand
You should write a book on music theory
my favorite scale is locrian.
i'm depressed...
Or a metalhead.
@@ErebosGR same thing
Ok so at 0:55 you played a chord, I said to myself “that sounds an awful lot like the opening chord to ‘Baby I don’t know’ by Vulfpeck” and its in the exact same key. I’m pretty sure that’s not perfect pitch, but is there a name for that?
I get that sometimes.
I get that sometimes.
also sounds like the beginning of Pink Floyd's "Stay"
Pitch memory.
How in the world you understand all of this?? Do you attend music college or self taught??
Cause honestly i want to analyze music just like you do but just don't know where to start🙄😅😅
I've been watching this dude's videos for a while now because I think this stuff is super interesting, but I really only pick up bits & pieces because my basic knowledge of music theory is, err... not there. Like... Idek what a "perfect fifth" is, but I understand some basics about scales, the sqrt(12) property we're lucky enough to have granting us our 12-note system, harmonic series', what makes something consonant, etc. I have a super physicsish & mathy background that helps me understand _some_ things, but I really should backtrack a little and catch up so that I can get the more practical bits as well.
Any recommendations for a good place to pound the basics into my head? Should I just Wikipedia the terms with which I'm unfamiliar, or is there a more well-structured way to inject all of that upstairs? Any tips pointing me in the right direction would be appreciated, my dudes (:
If there was such thing as a "best scale" then there probably be some kind of objectively "best piece of music" or something like that... obviously doesn't make sense lol
Not an expert in reading music , grew up having a great ear and just found with drumming I could listen and copy , so totally self taught ,SO with my back ground outa the way Please tell me what's with the left to right writing is not Arabic 🙄 and as far as I remember seen music written left to right ,I'm probably missing something obvious but like I said total self taught with a photographic listening 👂, so please explain to a written music novice, enjoy the videos can't do any damage learning musical theory 🤗🤗
Hi! So the reason I work from right to left actually doesn't have anything to do with music notation: It's because I'm left-handed. If I were to draw from left to right, my hand would be constantly covering the thing I just did, making it harder to follow the overall visual flow of the video.
@@12tone thanks never thought about that,and did notice you are left handed but for some reason I thought lefties still wrote left to right but makes sense, great site , some goes over my head due to a non traditional music education but VERY interesting to say the least ...
Oh, we mostly do write from left to write (At least, when we're writing in English), this is just an adjustment I had to make for the sake of filming.
Fine, but why to practice the major scale though
locrian should be the standard.
10:13 and... he winds up for the pitch multipun intended
that said, nice presentation!! : )
is there a reason why you use the g-major scale to explain everything and not a or c-major for example
Just because. I doubt any thought was put into it. You can make the same points with any root.
i know that i doesn't makes any difference but i think it interesting because if i explain something i normaly use e-flat@@SomeDude.1117
@@luiswagener5596 Interesting. Do you play brass in Eb or something, or are you just comfortable there? I myself (a guitarist) am quite comfortable in A, D, and E just as a result of the layout of my instrument.
I think Cory has mentioned that he tries not to use C Major because it's sort of the quote unquote "default" scale because it has no accidentals and it can be easy to see patterns and symmetry that don't actually exist due to E/F and B/C being half steps.
yeah i do so i think it is because of that@@SomeDude.1117
Yes yes yes. You listen to Jacob Collier. Yes
Why are Young an elephant?
All hail Ionian.
This is a major issue indeed. Yuck, that pun was majorly lame and is in urgent need for major surgery performed by people who majored in preventing major crimes against language! Anyway, if we populated a village with different scales, it wouldn't be a major surprise if Major ended up being elected mayor.
Now, let's address the elephant in the room: your channel keeps on rocking, and I love your videos! Congratulations.
third
Ninth sharp!
Nice 0 dislikes!
Major scale is the best and most fun scale
I hate major
I prefer locrian
i hate this comment.
i still prefer locrian tho
But I always thought the most important scale in Western music was the #3 bb7 overtone scale in its 2nd mode
First
Gratz :)
FiRsT
second
I'm writing a song at this very moment and i love it but its SO HARD
I've learned more music theory by watching these videos for a couple of months than I had in my entire life up to this point. One of these eons: get a real book on the topic... I want to learn more
I think western mzsic depends too much on tension/resolution
I think modern Western pop music doesn't have enough of this tension/resolution. I hardly ever hear the dominant chord on the radio anymore.
@@ВадимБаев-с9в what i meant by my comment is that composers just thought of other scales as "bad" because they didn't have tension/resolution in them, so they were really limiting themselves from so many awesome scales they could work in and made everything sound pretty much the same with major.
Also now that they dont use the dominant chord i dont see why they still talk about other scales being problematic for not having tension/resolution.
This is some fascinating stuff, and you explain it well!
As someone that primarily uses UA-cam as time-wasting background noise, I commend you for how your point about the only asymmetrically maximally distributed scales have 5 or 7 notes was so interesting it made me transcend my nature and rewind the video so I could hear it again (forgive the run-on sentence).
12tone is the greatest!
You have made a follower out of me. You teacher! Me student. I mean, I am a student of yours. Like, wow, MAN I am so blessed.
This video is fantastically informative and useful, however the elephant doodle subplot at 6:05-6:16 stole the show imo