Theory
Using the twelve notes of the chromatic scale, twelve of each of the three major scales (those with a major third/triad: Ionian, Lydian, and Mixolydian), twelve of each of the three minor scales (those with a minor third/triad: Dorian, Phrygian, and Aeolian), and twelve Locrian scales can be played, totaling eighty-four diatonic scales. The modern musical keyboard, with its black keys grouped in twos and threes, is essentially diatonic; this arrangement not only helps musicians to find their bearings on the keyboard, but simplifies the system of key signatures compared with what would be necessary for a continuous alternation of black and white keys. The black (or "short") keys were an innovation that allows the adjacent positioning of most of the diatonic whole-steps (all in the case of C major), with significant physical and conceptual advantages.
Read more about this topic: Diatonic Scale
Famous quotes containing the word theory:
“The weakness of the man who, when his theory works out into a flagrant contradiction of the facts, concludes “So much the worse for the facts: let them be altered,” instead of “So much the worse for my theory.””
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)
“It makes no sense to say what the objects of a theory are,
beyond saying how to interpret or reinterpret that theory in another.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“Hygiene is the corruption of medicine by morality. It is impossible to find a hygienest who does not debase his theory of the healthful with a theory of the virtuous.... The true aim of medicine is not to make men virtuous; it is to safeguard and rescue them from the consequences of their vices.”
—H.L. (Henry Lewis)