Major Scale - Structure

Structure

A major scale may be seen as two identical tetrachords separated by a whole tone, or whole step, the new set of steps "Whole:Whole:Half:Whole:Whole:Whole:Half"(in Semi-tone 2 2 1 2 2 2 1). Each tetrachord consists of two whole steps followed by a half step. Western scales do not skip any line or space on the staff, and they do not repeat any note with a different accidental. This has the effect of forcing the key signature to feature just sharps or just flats.

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Famous quotes containing the word structure:

    Each structure and institution here was so primitive that you could at once refer it to its source; but our buildings commonly suggest neither their origin nor their purpose.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    The structure was designed by an old sea captain who believed that the world would end in a flood. He built a home in the traditional shape of the Ark, inverted, with the roof forming the hull of the proposed vessel. The builder expected that the deluge would cause the house to topple and then reverse itself, floating away on its roof until it should land on some new Ararat.
    —For the State of New Jersey, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)

    Just as a new scientific discovery manifests something that was already latent in the order of nature, and at the same time is logically related to the total structure of the existing science, so the new poem manifests something that was already latent in the order of words.
    Northrop Frye (b. 1912)