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Interactive piano reference to major and minor scales

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Re: Interactive piano reference to major and minor scales

#51

Post by robbrown451 »

osteele wrote: post #50

This looks really nice. Here's something I wrote when I starting learning music theory. It ended up sort of cluttered; I like yours better. But please feel free to take any ideas from it that you think might be useful. https://osteele.github.io/fingerboard/

This is cool.

See my comment about how to calculate the piano key geometry (or just paste in my numbers) if you want your piano diagram to have correct placement of the keys (black keys shouldn't bisect the two adjacent white keys.... it makes the white key "stems" really narrow between black keys and looks weird).

Re: Interactive piano reference to major and minor scales

#52

Post by robbrown451 »

yesenadam wrote: post #9

First thing I clicked on was C minor... which showed me "C minor scale". Problem is.. Is that a thing? I've not heard of "the C minor scale". I don't think it's a thing. (Jazz pianist here) In classical piano as a kid I was taught 2 minor scales - melodic (different going up to coming down) and harmonic. Your "minor scale" corresponds to the melodic minor descending, aka Aeolian mode. (i.e. white piano notes from A u…

"The natural minor scale is the most common minor scale, and the default when a musician refers to “a minor scale” or “minor.” The natural minor scale pattern features the same exact notes as the Aeolian mode in modal music."

https://www.masterclass.com/articles/minor-scale-guide#what-...

Re: Interactive piano reference to major and minor scales

#53

Post by userbinator »

robbrown451 wrote: post #49
klodolph wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The spacing of the black keys is so far from the actual spacing on a real keyboard that I question how it could possibly look right to you. I would love to know if you actually have a real physical keyboard on hand, like I do, or if you are just going based on memory.

You should check out google images for piano key clip art. Almost all of them get it wrong. They assume a black key is centered between two white keys, but that is only true for g#. The width of all keys, white or black, should be equal to one another at the back of the keyboard. The width of the white keys should be exactly equal to one another at the front of the keyboard. Those can't both be true (since 5/12 isn't…

For some reason, this reminds me of "What happens when you ask people to draw a bike": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17699017

The black and white keys are instantly recognisable as a piano, but need a bit more inspection to notice the error.

Re: Interactive piano reference to major and minor scales

#54

Post by imbnwa »

klodolph wrote: post #33
yesenadam wrote: post #9

First thing I clicked on was C minor... which showed me "C minor scale". Problem is.. Is that a thing? I've not heard of "the C minor scale". I don't think it's a thing. (Jazz pianist here) In classical piano as a kid I was taught 2 minor scales - melodic (different going up to coming down) and harmonic. Your "minor scale" corresponds to the melodic minor descending, aka Aeolian mode. (i.e. white piano notes from A u…

This is a topic that I think is covered poorly sometimes. It's one of those things that is actually a much longer discussion. Think of it, in increasing complexity, 1. There is a major scale and a minor scale. 2. Actually, there are three minor scales: natural, melodic, and harmonic. 3. Actually, forget about those scales. Think instead more freely about tonality, modal mixtures, secondary dominants, and voice leadin…

>I think it's really that people like categorizing scales and learning new names for things, which also drives people's fascination with modes, which is totally out of proportion to how much you'd actually want to use them in music

I don't get this. Modes show up all the time in popular music of the last 50 years. Am I missing something?

Re: Interactive piano reference to major and minor scales

#55

Post by nescioquid »

yesenadam wrote: post #40
fennecfoxen wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's a thing. C major, C natural minor, C melodic minor, C harmonic minor, the whole shebang: all the scales are there for every note, A through G and the sharps/flats. Heck. You could start somewhere in between recognized notes and make a major/minor scale based off that, if you had the right instrument. It's a ratio of frequencies, that's all. That's what all Western music music is based on. Divide the fr…

I think GP was just making a Monk joke, which I appreciated a lot - it made me smile and made up in a moment for all these downvotes! My "shallow dismissal" made some interesting discussion appear, at least. ..But, it seems maybe you meant to reply to me, not the GP.

Sorry to hear about the down-votes. Monk always cheers me up, too!

I've always found the three forms of the minor scale to be pointless pedantry: Bach was happy enough to write a C-minor piece with two flats on the staff, lowering 6 and raising 7 as needed by voice-leading and harmony, but that doesn't lend itself easily to a silly fingering chart.

My misspent youth earned me a degree in theory and composition, but I've found myself in your situation every time I've cracked open a scale book to freshen up and pass a hairy eye-ball over natural, melodic, and harmonic forms. You're right: they are not "real things", they are just a silly pedagogical contraption.

Re: Interactive piano reference to major and minor scales

#57

Post by hiptobecubic »

avodonosov wrote: post #56

What javascript apis they use to create sites like that? To play instrument notes at different pitches, and to play notes simultaneously?

Without looking too deeply into it, I assume it's MIDI and using some JS implementation of a MIDI engine / soundfont to play.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_MIDI_AP...

Re: Interactive piano reference to major and minor scales

#58

Post by yesenadam »

robbrown451 wrote: post #52
yesenadam wrote: post #9

First thing I clicked on was C minor... which showed me "C minor scale". Problem is.. Is that a thing? I've not heard of "the C minor scale". I don't think it's a thing. (Jazz pianist here) In classical piano as a kid I was taught 2 minor scales - melodic (different going up to coming down) and harmonic. Your "minor scale" corresponds to the melodic minor descending, aka Aeolian mode. (i.e. white piano notes from A u…

"The natural minor scale is the most common minor scale, and the default when a musician refers to “a minor scale” or “minor.” The natural minor scale pattern features the same exact notes as the Aeolian mode in modal music." https://www.masterclass.com/articles/minor-scale-guide#what-...

Well, I've already written too much on this page! But every part of that seems wrong or very strange. And just before what you quoted:

> 3 Types of Minor Scales

> There are three types of minor scales in music theory.

What type of "music theory"? Dorian mode doesn't count? Maybe 3 in classical music theory, not in jazz or..rock/pop/contemporary music etc. And calling them "types" of minor scale sounds very odd to me.

> The natural minor scale is the most common minor scale.

Is that true? Arguably not. What sort of music are they talking? Does it mean "out of all music ever written" or "nowadays in music" or..something else? They might mean, "in classical music before the mid 19th C" if they say there are 3 minor scales. Or, most likely, "This is true by definition ..because it's called natural minor." - they probably never thought about if it's true or not. The scale of a piece/song (usually) depends on the melody, and I think Aeolian (i.e. "natural") and Dorian are both common. Possibly Dorian is much more common - that "minor 6" sound very common in pop songs since..forever, the 60s if not way before, is Dorian not Aeolian. It's extremely common in R&B etc. Or like..uh..the second chord of Here, There and Everywhere, Gmajor then Amin, the scale is evidently not Aeolian but Dorian.

> the default when a musician refers to “a minor scale” or “minor.”

Well, this is questionable too. Depends what kind of music. "Minor" mostly refers to a chord, not a scale. I'm not sure people ever say "a minor scale", when would you (need to) say that? It might mean a minor blues scale in some genres.

> The natural minor scale pattern features the same exact notes as the Aeolian mode in modal music.

I find that super-bizarre and sounds like they don't know what they're talking about. Features the same exact notes?! - it's the same thing. A little like saying "news.ycombinator.com features the same exact articles as Hacker News". You would think "What the hell are they talking about?!", and that's what I think when I read that sentence.

Re: Interactive piano reference to major and minor scales

#59

Post by robbrown451 »

yesenadam wrote: post #58
robbrown451 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The natural minor scale is the most common minor scale, and the default when a musician refers to “a minor scale” or “minor.” The natural minor scale pattern features the same exact notes as the Aeolian mode in modal music." https://www.masterclass.com/articles/minor-scale-guide#what-...

Well, I've already written too much on this page! But every part of that seems wrong or very strange. And just before what you quoted: > 3 Types of Minor Scales > There are three types of minor scales in music theory. What type of "music theory"? Dorian mode doesn't count? Maybe 3 in classical music theory, not in jazz or..rock/pop/contemporary music etc. And calling them "types" of minor scale sounds very odd to me.…

Well my experience is that the natural minor is treated as the "default" minor key. For instance, I always understood that A minor was all on white keys. Here is what the Wikipedia page for "A minor" starts with:

"A minor is a minor scale based on A, with the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Its key signature has no flats and no sharps. Its relative major is C major and is parallel major is A major."

Then it goes on to discuss the melodic and harmonic versions. Notably, those need accidentals since the key signature itself describes A natural minor. That in itself suggests "default" for the natural version. As does the name "natural."

Re: Interactive piano reference to major and minor scales

#60

Post by robbrown451 »

userbinator wrote: post #53
robbrown451 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should check out google images for piano key clip art. Almost all of them get it wrong. They assume a black key is centered between two white keys, but that is only true for g#. The width of all keys, white or black, should be equal to one another at the back of the keyboard. The width of the white keys should be exactly equal to one another at the front of the keyboard. Those can't both be true (since 5/12 isn't…

For some reason, this reminds me of "What happens when you ask people to draw a bike": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17699017 The black and white keys are instantly recognisable as a piano, but need a bit more inspection to notice the error.

Interesting. Some people got the bike right. I'm quite sure I can draw a proper bike, but I have a long history in drafting and mechanical design.
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