The Math of Music – #ItsANumbersGame

The Math of Music - It's A Numbers Game...

It’s a numbers game?
Playing it by the numbers?
What ever are you talking about?

I’m talking about the major/minor scales and how they relate to each other and to the tonic note or KEY Note. It is important to NOTE (see what I did there) that the KEY note is the note from which the scale gets its name and because of the name it would have certain features or characteristics. The numbers are number from 1 to 7 and represent all the notes of the scale. You could see this in the diagram that I had for my recent post – I Need My Keys!

Each note in a scale is assigned a number. For example, in the major scale there are 8 notes, with the 8th ascending note  being exactly the same but exactly one octave (8) higher.  (It is also exactly double the frequency in Hertz (Hz – but I will talk about that in a later post). The main note of a scale is given the number 1. Each consecutive note as the scale gets higher and higher is assigned the next number until the 8th note which becomes 1 again.

So using the scale of C-Major we find the following:
C-1,   D-2,    E-3,    F-4,   G-5,   A-6,   B-7 and back to C, which becomes 1 again and it goes on and on. These numbers become important because they form the framework by which different musicians can play a song and know what to do based on the number that corresponds to the chord being played at that particular time.

So take time to explore the Math of Music and as always keep a smile going as you Play It By Ear!!!

7 thoughts on “The Math of Music – #ItsANumbersGame”

    1. Nick. I don’t know the formula to music. I just make noise that sounds good to other people and to myself too. But the main thing to do is to have fun at the same time. That’s all that matters. If you can have a good time, then the rest is “gravy”

      Dave

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