Victoria Isom

ISM-Period 7

DIllen, Oscar. "Basic Building Blocks of Melody and Harmony - Oscar Van Dillen." Oscar Van
Dillen. N.p., 2011. Web. 28 Mar. 2016.

A scale is a collection of tones arranged in a stepwise order

Scales can be ascending or descending
Scales often times span one octave, occasionally two
Sets of scales can be categorized into major minor and diminished scales
A major scale pattern can be described as WWHWWWH
A natural minor scale can be described as WHWWHWW
A harmonic minor scale can be described as WHWWH(1.5)H
A melodic minor scale can be described as WHWWWWH
W stands for whole steps, the distance of two keys on a piano
H stands for half steps, the distance of one key on a piano
A mode is a collection of notes much like a scale, however modes have specific melodic
requirements
Modal music is also known as tonal music
Church modes are derived from the different degrees of the major scale
Church modes include Ionian, Dorian, Phyrigian, Lydian, Mixolodian, Aeolian and
Locrian
The name church modes derives from their usage in the Christian Gregorian chant and
early polyphony
An intercal is the sound of exactly two tones when played together or consecutively
Intervals are measured by the amount of steps between them
Intervals are described as being in unision or a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh
or an octave apart
In addition, intervals are also described by their qualities
Qualities include Major, Minor, Perfect, Augmented and Diminished
Inversions of intervals can be found by subtracting the distance from nine and then
moving to the opposite of the quality.
For example, an inverted Major 3rd is a Minor 6th.
A perfect inversion is a perfect
An augmented inverted is diminished.
A triad is a type of chord comprised of three tones, all in consecutive thirds.

Steps (spaces on a keyboard) are the first building blocks of music, which quickly evolves into a
collection of scales, keys, intervals and triads that create harmonic and melodic sounds across all
genres.