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By Aron Bernstein 2 Comments

Weekly Music Challenge: 4/18/22

Show off your theory chops with my weekly challenge! You’ll find a new question here every Monday. Please comment to post your reply.

This Week’s Challenge:

Within the context of common practice music, the harmonic minor scale solves one problem but creates another. This week’s challenge is in three parts:

a) What problem does the harmonic minor scale solve?

b) What problem does it create?

c) How is this problem solved?

The red bracket is your clue!

Post your reply and come back Friday, April 22nd for the answer!

ANSWER for 4/18/22

a) Harmonic minor exists for––you guessed it––harmonic purposes. It solves the problem of a natural minor scale, from which you can only build a minor V chord. This makes the authentic cadence, which requires a major V chord, impossible. By raising the seventh note of the natural minor scale, this gives the scale a leading tone, which changes the V chord to a major triad, thus making a true V–I authentic cadence possible.

b) By raising that 7th note to create the harmonic minor scale, we leave a large “gap” between the 6th and 7th notes, an augmented 2nd. To 18th-Century composers and theorists, this interval was just a bit too awkward, too difficult to sing, and (as befitting a rather ethnocentric West-European mentality) too “exotic” for a diatonic scale.

c) To “correct” the problem and smooth out the scale, we add a third type of minor scale: melodic minor. Raise the 6th note a half-step, and we iron out that large augmented 2nd and make the scale easier to sing, with just half-steps and whole-steps to contend with.

Want to Learn More?

With Breaking Barlines you learn music theory the right way: fun, holistic, and with a personal touch! Have a look at the complete Breaking Barlines Course! Then sign up for a monthly subscription for full access to all video lessons, worksheets, and answer keys. New lessons are always added, so stay tuned!

By Aron Bernstein 7 Comments

Weekly Music Theory Challenge: 3/21/22

Show off your theory chops with my weekly challenge! You’ll find a new question here every Monday. Please comment to post your reply.

This Week’s Challenge:

A whole-tone scale is just that: only whole steps, not a half step to be seen. Why does the use of this scale undermine common-practice harmony and tonality?

Post your reply and come back Friday, March 25th for the answer!

ANSWER for 3/7/22

Great comments on this week’s challenge! Common-practice harmony is centered around major-minor tonality. A whole tone scale undermines this because there are no perfect fifths, and so it’s impossible to create major or minor triads with this scale. Only augmented triads can be formed. Also, as Steve, Madison, and Brian said, with no half-steps, there can be nothing resembling tendency tones, the building blocks of common-practice cadences. Patricia and Robert correctly pointed out that there’s no sense of resolution, and that each chord sounds as much like a tonic as any other.

Because of this scale’s intervallic symmetry (based only on the whole step), it has been called a mode of limited transposition by French composer Olivier Messiaen. It can only be transposed once before repeating the same pitches, and so there are only two whole-tone scales. In the late 19th-Century, along with octatonic scales and a renewed interest in the old church modes, the whole tone scale was one of many tools that circumvented, and ultimately undermined, the rules of the common-practice.

Want to Learn More?

With Breaking Barlines you learn music theory the right way: fun, holistic, and with a personal touch! Have a look at the complete Breaking Barlines Course! Then sign up for a monthly subscription for full access to all video lessons, worksheets, and answer keys. New lessons are always added, so stay tuned!

By Aron Bernstein 7 Comments

Weekly Music Theory Challenge 8/9/21

Show off your theory chops with my weekly challenge! You’ll find a new question here every Monday. Please comment to post your reply.

This week’s challenge:

What kind of scale produces both an A-flat dominant seventh chord and a B half-diminished chord (B minor seventh-flat fifth). Hint: add all the notes together!

Reply to post your answer, and check back on Friday, August 13th to see if you’re right!

ANSWER for 8/9/21

This is the OCTATONIC scale, also called the half step/whole step diminished scale. It’s built from alternating half steps and whole steps, for a total of eight different pitches within the octave:

This scale opens up harmonic avenues that are not possible with diatonic major or minor scales. Here are the chords from this week’s theory challenge:

The 20th Century French composer Olivier Messiaen called this scale a mode of limited transposition. Unlike major or minor scales, it can only be transposed a limited number of times before you end up with the exact same pitches. Major and minor scales can be transposed to every one of the twelve chromatic pitches within the octave, each giving a different set of notes. But the half-whole-half octatonic can only be transposed three times before all the pitches repeat. So the octatonic scale above, starting on B, has the same pitches as the ones starting on D, F, and A-flat. Notice those four starting notes–B, D, F, A-flat–spell out a diminished seventh chord, a harmony readily available in the octatonic scale.

Want to Learn More?

Have a look at the complete Breaking Barlines Course! Then sign up for a monthly subscription for full access to all video lessons, worksheets, and answer keys. New lessons are always being added, so stay tuned. I created Breaking Barlines with one thing in mind: making music theory effective and FUN!

By Aron Bernstein 7 Comments

Weekly Music Theory Challenge 7/19/21

Show off your theory chops with my weekly challenge! You’ll find a new question here every Monday. Please comment to post your reply.

This week’s challenge:

Misirlou and Hava Nagila use two different scales that are almost identical. In fact, only one note makes the difference between Misirlou’s scale and Hava Nagila’s. What are these two scales, and what makes them different? Hint: the Hava Nagila excerpt here does not start on DO (the tonic).

Listen: Misirlou
Listen: Hava Nagila

Reply to post your answer, and check back on Friday, July 23rd to see the answer!

ANSWER for 7/19/21

Misirlou is an Eastern Mediterranean melody that uses the Double Augmented Major scale. It’s made from two identical tetrascales, each with an augmented 2nd flanked by half-steps. In solfege, it’s DO-RA-MI-FA-SO-LE-TI-DO:

LISTEN

Hava Nagila is a Jewish song based on a Hasidic melody. It uses the Phrygian Dominant scale, so called because it’s what you get if you build a scale on the fifth note (or dominant) of the harmonic minor scale; and because of the half-step between the first two notes, characteristic of the Phrygian mode. The only difference with Double Augmented Major is that Phrygian Dominant has only one augmented second. The seventh note makes that difference: it makes a whole step with the 6th note, whereas in Misirlou it makes another augmented 2nd. The solfege for Phrygian Dominant scale is nearly the same:DO-RA-MI-FA-SO-LE-TE-DO:

LISTEN

The Double Augmented Major scale is also called Hijaz-Kar in Arabic. The Phrygian Dominant mode, when used in Jewish prayers, is also called Ahava Rabbah or Freygish.

Want to Learn More?

Learn every scale in the book with my entire series of videos in the Scales Module! Sign up for a monthly subscription for full access to all video lessons, worksheets, and answer keys, and stay tuned for new lessons on non-Western scales. I created Breaking Barlines with one thing in mind: making music theory effective and FUN!

By Aron Bernstein 2 Comments

Weekly Music Theory Challenge: 4/19/21

Show off your music theory chops with my weekly challenge! You’ll find a new question posted here every Monday, and you can comment to post your reply.

This week’s challenge:

How do you spell the notes of a D Sharp Harmonic Minor Scale?

CHECK BACK on Friday, 4/23 for the answer!

ANSWER for 4/19/21

Like any diatonic scale, D sharp harmonic minor has seven consecutive letter names, none skipped and none repeated. The seventh note of D sharp natural minor, C sharp, is raised a half-step in harmonic minor. Keeping the same letter name, it must be called C double sharp.

Want to learn more?

Sign up for a membership and get full access to all video lessons, worksheets, and answer keys! Brush up on your scales and get some excellent video instruction in the Scales Module!