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If there are 8 notes in an OCTave, why do I have 12 notes or frets between the octaves on my guitar? |
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That's because a scale is made from the twelve notes available in the chromatic scale but doesn't use all of them. For example: (Chromatic scale) C, C#, D, D#, E, F, F#, G, G#, A, A#, B, C An octave of any note is twelve notes higher, or twelve "half-steps" (each fret on the guitar is a half-step). A scale is composed of varying half and whole steps in a certain order to make a scale, which leaves out certain notes but still ends on the octave, if that makes any sense. Here's how a major scale is made of steps: W W H W W W H (Major scale steps, "W" meaning whole and "H" meaning half) If you don't already know, a whole step is the distance between two frets on the guitar, like the distance between fret 1 and fret 3 on the 6th string. I hope I helped... But there are still '12 notes' in the octave no matter what scale is played? So why octave meaning '8 notes'??
(15 Nov '10, 17:24)
steve zodiac
A pentatonic scale has 5 notes, hexatonic 6, tritonic 3, octatonic 8????
(15 Nov '10, 17:36)
steve zodiac
The relationship between the first note and the eighth note in a scale is only called an OCTave because there are eight notes in a scale, typically ("Oct" meaning 8 obviously) with the eighth being the same note as the first but higher in pitch. Umm.. yes no matter what scale you're playing, there is still twelve notes from the first degree (note) of the scale to the octave, BUT you do not play all of those notes, only the ones that make up the scale you're playing... Like C Major: C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C Notice how you don't play C#, D#, F#, G#, or A#.
(15 Nov '10, 18:17)
Andrew
And yes, a pentatonic scale has five notes, but musicians never really call scales tritonic if they have 3 notes or whatever. We just think of the scale as having three notes. Just remember what pentatonic, octatonic, and hexatonic means because they're the most common scales.
(15 Nov '10, 18:21)
Andrew
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The ancient Greeks were very clever musicians and Pythagoras, using maths, almost got music right. However they only had and used 8 notes (using mathmatical ratios) and those 8 notes were still used right up until the first millennium i.e. A B C D E F G A. It is because of this that an octave (8) is called an octave and that is why a dominant is a 5th (i.e. A to E), a sub dominant a 4th (e.g. A to D) and so on. Later on musicians wanted to play in different keys so further notes were introduced and scales could then have more notes in them. (For further reading see equal temperament). However the old names (4th, 5th, octave etc.) were retained even though they didn't make as much sense as before. In crude terms the medieval musician used only the 'white notes' of a modern keyboard, and their arrangement became the model for all other scales. The 'black' notes weren't really invented later, they had always been there, it's just that they weren't used. When they were, all hell broke loose and Bach even wrote a series of songs using every key to demonstrate this historical event (The Well Tempered Clavier). In today's music we still have 'unused' notes (frequencies) i.e. The note A (above middle C) has a frequency of 440Hz and the next note A# is 466.16Hz meaning that there are 26.16Hz, frequencies or notes (and each Hz has 100 cents so that's 2616.00 notes unused!!). However, you can get some of these notes on unfretted instruments such as a violin or cello. The human ear can usually hear the change in pitch between 2 & 3Hz and as we only have 10 fingers to play with 'practicality' here is the key. Who knows maybe in a few years time we may get 20, 30 or 50 notes in an 'octave', or they may just change the name 'octave' to make more sense!! Now Indian and Chinese music - well there's another story. Music eh!! |