The Basic Concept Of Scale & Tonality In Music

Tonality is an organized musical composition of one central tone and the remaining other tones have a relationship with that root tone.

We must know the Scale (The tones of the Major and Minor scale ) in order to understand the Tonality.

The word scale is derived from the Latin word scala. A scale is a step-wise series of notes. It’s theoretically the eight consecutive notes (A B C D E F G A), that start at a particular note, then go up or down the keyboard, until get back to the same letter.  Scales were first found in the musical ideas of Ancient Greek. Later in the 16th century, in the West the scale dominate music-making. At this time Ionian is assumed as the major scale, whereas Aeonian is the natural minor scale. Tonality, in music, is the principle of organizing musical compositions around a central note. It signifies the specific system of relationships between notes, chords, and keys.

Tonality shows how certain notes, on a scale relate to each other. The concept of uses tonality may vary. Sometimes major-minor tonality, uses the notes of the major and minor scales, also as an added auxiliary, or chromatic, notes as the raw material with which to build melodies and chords.  Traditionally, the minor scale is associated with the positive, jovial. enthusiastic mood. On the contrary minor scale was perfectly suitable for despairing mood. . Major and minor scales are made up of a series of whole steps and half steps.  This is what gives them their character and flavor.

For tonality, within each key, there is a specific hierarchy of major and minor notes and chords both to the keynote, or tonic note, that creates and specified the strong and weak relationship of notes. The chord created on that tonic note is called the tonic chord. Different keys are also closely or remotely related to the principal, or tonic, key. The notes and chords changes can create tension or calmness in music. So created tensions between keys which is an earlier effect of modulation can also be resolved by modulation back to the tonic.