Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!ukma!mailrus!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!rutgers!njin!princeton!pucc!ROGER
From: ROGER@pucc.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Newsgroups: comp.music
Subject: Re: theory behind the scales
Message-ID: <11322@pucc.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 13 Jul 90 15:55:32 GMT
References: <8547@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> <11271@pucc.Princeton.EDU> <14260@venera.isi.edu>
Reply-To: ROGER@pucc.Princeton.EDU
Organization: Princeton University, NJ
Lines: 33
Disclaimer: Author bears full responsibility for contents of this article

In article <14260@venera.isi.edu>, smoliar@vaxa.isi.edu (Stephen Smoliar) writes:

>In article <11271@pucc.Princeton.EDU> ROGER@pucc.Princeton.EDU writes:

>>Better to think of minor as major with a screwy third.

>This is probably the best summary I have ever read of the "Combinations"
>chapter of Heinrich Schenker's HARMONY!  Of course, he then goes on to argue
>that you can play the same game with ANY step of the major scale.  This is how
>he then explains all the modes.  I'm not sure anyone has ever bought into that
>generalization.

How about Ed Cone?  (Probably got it off an episode of Benny Hill or
something...)  Seriously, it's not a bad idea if you're talking about
the use of mode in the common-practice period.  Major IS prior to the
other modes; note how pieces in minor have a funny habit of ending in
major  -- and NEVER the other way around.

When you get down to it, you can, with little trouble, substitute
the equivalent major harmonies for the chord on any scale degree of
the minor.  And minor is an odd case to begin with, as it comes with
two notes that alternate to begin with -- and a set of rules for
choosing one or the other.  And it's major-key practice that
determines those rules: when the harmony demands it, you step out of
the minor scale and use the major-key note -- or if the melody demands
it.  'Melodic' minor is a majorized minor.

And once you start in with the most obvious chromatic alteration of
all -- V of IV -- there goes your third!

Roger Lustig (ROGER@PUCC.BITNET roger@pucc.princeton.edu)

Disclaimer: I thought it was a costume party!