Musical KEYS: definition and characteristics

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Music has an organization Awesome. The musical system is created with a wonderful mathematical structure, which is not perceptible to those who do not know about music theory. Those who learn about music gain a new appreciation for music by understanding that this art is a vast world to explore thanks to the infinite possibilities that exist to use our creativity. In this article by a TEACHER we will discuss the definition of musical tones and their characteristics, therefore, we will talk about aspects related to the subject such as grades and musical signatures.

Index

1. The relationships of sounds in tonality
2. Definition of musical keys
3. Characteristics of musical keys
4. How to find the key: musical signatures
5. Major key, relative minor and more

Before entering fully into knowing what musical keys and their characteristics are, it is important that we know the relationships of sounds. And it is that thanks to

Within the scale there are notes harmonically stable and unstable. When we speak of a stable note we refer to a note that does not incite us to movement, but we can listen to it without feeling the need to change to the next note. On the other hand, when talking about unstable notes, our hearing gives us the feeling that that note must move to a more stable note, this in music we call resolution.

Knowing the above information, we can define that the tonality is when we know what generating note gives us the greater harmonic stability in the hierarchy of a scale. We call this note the tonic and dictates the relationship that the rest of the notes in the scale will have and their harmonic function.

To broaden the concept of harmony and be able to use it in a work, we take each note of the scale and turn it into a chord organized by thirds (major or minor depending on the tonic). For example, if we start on the first note: Do, your third would be Me. In turn, the third of Mi is SWl. So the resulting chord is a C Major, made up of the notes C - E - G.

This same system is applied to the rest of the notes of the scale, and this is how we get a chord for each one of them. Each chord will be a different chord because remember that the notes in a major scale do not all have the same distance from each other. Knowing this, we can proceed to name each chord in the scale by its function.

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When we speak to the notes and their resulting chords according to their function in the scale, each step of the scale is called "grade". We use Roman numerals to refer to them in the order from the first note to the seventh.

Each grade receives a name that originates from the function it fulfills:

• I - First Grade: Tonic
• II - Second Grade: Supertonic
• III - Third Grade: Through
• IV - Fourth degree: Subdominant
• V - Fifth grade: Dominant
• VI - Sixth grade: Superdominant or Submediate
• VII - Seventh grade: Sensitive

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The musical armor is the set of alterations that we can scale it so that its notes maintain certain relationships in intervals. We carry out these alterations in two ways: increasing the pitch of one or more notes by 1 semitone or decreasing the pitch of one note or more notes by 1 semitone.

• To increase the tuning we use a symbol called "Sharp" (#)
• And to decrease the pitch we use a symbol called "flat". (b)

We can find the armor at the beginning of the staff and in conventional cases it indicates the tonality.

Since the major scale is our reference scale, the number of alterations in the armor depends on how many notes of the scale we must alter so that they maintain the relationship in intervals that have the notes of the scale higher (1 – 1 – ½ – 1 – 1 – 1 – ½)

For a more practical analysis and memorization, the "Circle of fifths". Starting with C, we rotate from note to fifths and each time we change the note we add an alteration to the key signature. For example, Do it has 0 accidentals, because it is the generating note of the major scale. His fifth is Sun, so Sun will have 1 alteration. This alteration is placed on the note fa because in this way the relationship is maintained 1 – 1 – ½ – 1 – 1 – 1 – ½ of the major scale. The next note in the circle would be the fifth of Sun, What is it Re, so his armor would have 2 alterations... and so on until the circle is complete.

Image: music, (piano and flute)

Just because a key signature indicates the major scale, it does not necessarily mean that the key is major. Each major key has what we call a "relative minor" y is a minor key that uses exactly the same key signature. The difference: the way in which the degrees of tonality are used.

As well as the relative minor, there are other shades that use the same key signature than some major tonalities, that is why we cannot rely solely on the key signature and we must pay attention to the way in which the degrees are used in the work or song that we are analyzing. Realizing the degrees used, the frequency with which they are used, and the chord with the greatest sense of resolution, is how we can find the true tonality.

As we have learned, again music theory shows us that the possibilities of creation in the art of sound are immense. Although it can be imposing at times, it is a relief to also know that it is an art that will never bore us and that we can continue exploring regardless of the level of knowledge we have.

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