Major Scale - Harmonic Properties

Harmonic Properties

The major scale may predominate the minor scale in Western music because of its unique harmonic properties ; in particular the major third is much stronger in the harmonic series (it is the 5th, 10th and 20th harmonic – see below) than the minor third (the 19th harmonic).

In other words, the first six notes of the harmonic series provide a consonant major chord, the fourth to sixth of which form a major triad, and seven of the nine notes between the 8th and 16th harmonics (the 7th and 15th overtones) are notes in the major scale in just intonation. See the following:

The major scale allows:

• major or minor triads, both stable and consonant, on every scale degree but the seventh
• motion by a minor second from the leading tone up to the tonic (see resolution (music)) and from the subdominant down to the mediant.
• a dominant seventh chord on the fifth degree, the dominant (see voice leading)
• a diminished triad and a half-diminished seventh chord on the seventh degree, the leading tone.
• root motion by perfect fifths, the strongest root motion, from nearly every degree in either direction. The one exception is the unstable tritone interval between the fourth and seventh scale degrees, which is either a diminished fifth or its enharmonic equivalent, an augmented fourth.