On Feb 26, 7:57 pm, neverl...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Pete) wrote:
> While this topic is alive, let me ask a related question that has been
> bugging me for years.
>
> Why is the tonic of the "all white notes" major scale "C" and not "A"?
> As far as I understand it, the diatonic scale derives (probably both)
> from the logic of harmonics, and the circle of fifths, so that pattern
> is fairly basic to our Western music. So, given that it exists, and it
> has a tonic, why didn't we label the scale ABCDEFG(A), with C-D and G-A
> being the semitones? How did a minor scale come to be ABCDEFG? (A
minor
> third desn't fit into the circle of fifths, does it?)
>
> Another thing that offends my sense of rightness (:-) is that to get the
> scale from fifths, you have to start on the subdominant. I realize that
> this is how the math works, to get those 'low ratios', but naively it's
> odd. I suppose it's logical that the tonic should be the one that
> shares the two fifths, though.
>
> -- Pete --
>
> --
>
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Mostly by the definitions that various people use. The C is tonic to
the major scale and the A would be tonic to the natural minor scale or
the Aeolian Mode. Each note can be the tonic of the white notes
depending on their use. Convention has come to consider the Major key
to be the starting point, then its relative minor (Cmaj and Amin) and
then the various modes. The set of white notes, by themselves, have no
real tonic. Only the use of the notes in a tonal setting can indicate
what the tonic is.
LJS
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