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- Hi. In lesson five in grade one, we were thinking about a few major scales and the major keys that belong to those scales. So we thought about C major, and we thought about G major, and about D major, and about F major. And again, it would be perhaps worth recapping on lesson five of grade one just to be sure that that all makes sense before we venture onwards into the new keys that we need to know about for grade two. So, here are the new major keys that we're going to explore.
0:38
A major, B-flat major, and E-flat major. Now, one way you can always be sure to get sorted on which sharps or flats you need in any particular scale is to remember the thing we learnt about before that says, there's a pattern to major scales. It goes tone, tone, semitone, tone tone tone semitone. So, let's take our first key which is A major and we're going to try and construct it on that method. So, here comes the stave, and here's a treble clef.
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And if it's A major, obviously I'm going to start on A. It doesn't really matter which A you start on, but it makes reasonable sense to start on this A here. If you wanted to start on A two ledger lines below the stave, that would be equally fine. I'm going to start on this A and we're going to write out one of each letter until we come to the next A. So A B, C, D, E, F, G, and in order to find the top note A, I need to use the first ledger line. So, that gives me the notes of
2:09
one octave of a scale of A major. Now if we're going to apply this pattern to it, we might need to add some sharps or some flats to make the tones and semitones come in the right place. So let's have a think about this. We need a tone between those two notes. We need a tone between those two. We need a semitone between those two. A tone here. A tone there. A tone there, and a semitone to finish. So, let's check this out. And we can do this, with the help of the keyboard as well.
2:46
If the first note is A, there's A. We need a tone between A and B. Now if we look at the keyboard picture for a moment, you can see there's a black note in-between. So, that would be a semitone, that would be a semitone. So A to B, must be a tone. So that's fine isn't it. We have got a tone between A and B. Now between B and C, there should also be a tone. Let's have a look, here's B. And here's C. Now you can see, we've got a little problem because
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there's no black note is there between B and C. So B to C, is a semitone. Now we don't want to change the B, because if we change the B that's going to muck up the tone we've already had. So, you've always got to think about changing the second note, the higher note of the pair in order to get this to work. So, I've really got to ask myself now, well if B to C is a semitone, what would be a tone above B that gives me C something? Well if B to C is a semitone,
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then B to C-sharp must be a tone. Do you see? I have to call it C-sharp because this note has to be some kind of C. You could say, "Well, that note's D-Flat." Well we don't want D anything we want C something. So, it's going to have to be C-sharp. So, B to C-sharp is a tone. So, let's put a sharp sign in front of that C, and we've got a C-sharp giving us a tone. Now, between the C-sharp we've just discovered and the next note D, we need a semitone. So here's C-sharp, up is semitone, there's D.
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And you see, there's nothing in-between those two notes. That's definitely a semitone. So, D is good. Now we need a tone between D and E. So, let's check this one out. Here's D. And here's E. And as you can see, there's a black note in-between. So, D to E must be a tone. So that's good. The next pair takes us from E to F. So here's E. And here's F. And, that should be a tone. Now if you have a look at E to F, this is the other pair of white notes other than B and C
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where there's no black note in-between. So, E to F must be a semitone. Remember we don't want to change E because if we change E we're going to muck it up going backwards down the scale. So we've got to change the F. If I need a tone above E, and the note has to be F something, it will have to be F-sharp. Because there's a semitone from E to F, a semitone from F to F-sharp, so E to F-sharp is a tone. So, next move. I need to put a sharp sign in front of F. Now, we're almost there.
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But after the F-sharp we've now got, we need a tone. Let's see how we're looking. F-sharp, going up to G. Ah, now that's only a semitone isn't it? There's nothing between F-sharp and G. I don't want to change the F-sharp, we've already dealt with F-sharp anyway, so I need to be doing something to G. So what can I do to G, to make sure that G something is a tone above F-sharp. Well there answer is, to make it G-sharp. F-sharp to G is a semitone, G to G-sharp is a semitone,
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so F-sharp to G-sharp is a tone. So let's make G, a G-sharp. And then I need a semitone, between G-sharp and A at the top. So let's check that one out. G-sharp, to A. Yes, that's a semitone. So that gives me, a scale of A major. And hopefully you can now see, that A major has three sharps in it, and you can see why we need them. If I play that scale of A with no sharps, it sounds like this.
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Now that's got a name, it's called the Aeolian Mode, but you don't need to worry about that. If we put the tones and semitones in the right place, using C-sharp, F-sharp, and G-sharp it starts to sound like a major scale.
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And so, if I want to play a piece of music in A major, I would be using those three sharps. Here's a little piece in A major.
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And that works, because I'm using those three sharps. Okay, so that's the scale of A major. And, let's have a little think about B-flat major next. And just to make life a bit more interesting, let's do it in the bass clef this time. So here comes the stave. And the bass clef. B-flat major so we need to start on B. Well there's a B there isn't there, on the second line of the stave. I could use this B up here, but if I go up from there, I'm going to have an awful lot of ledger lines,
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and if I start on a B down here, I'm going to start with quite a few ledger lines. This is going to fit very comfortably into the stave. So B, C, D, E, F, G, A, B. Well the very first thing I need to do is to think about this because it's not B major we're writing it's B-flat major. So, this is obviously going to be B-flat. And you might also think, "Well actually if that's B-flat, "that will have to be B-flat at the top as well." We could discover that later, but we know its going to be B-flat
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because it's B-flat major. So, we might as well put it in before we do anything else. I'm going to do exactly what we did before in A major. We're just going to do it in B-flat major. So we need tone, tone, semitone, tone tone tone semitone. Now then, here's the B-flat we're starting on. It's two below middle C. There's middle C. This is B-flat just beneath middle C. Here's the B-flat an octave lower. So that's where we're starting. So B-flat to C, should be a tone. That's looking good because
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we've got a note in-between so B-flat to B is a semitone. B to C is a semitone. B-flat to C is a tone. C to D is a tone cause there's a black note in-between. D to E is a tone, but we need this to be a semitone. So, we need to do something to E to make it a semitone above D. So if that's D, E will have to be E-flat, to give us a semitone. So there's E-flat. E-flat to F should be a tone. You can see we've got this note in-between. So, E-flat to F must be a tone. F to G must be a tone.
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And it is, because there's just one note in-between. G to A should be a tone. And it is, because there's a black note in-between. And A to B-flat, should be a semitone at the top. And it is. And that's why we end up with B-flats and an E-flat in the scale of B-flat major. Again to get the pattern, tone tone semitone, tone tone tone semitone. This is what it sounds like. B-flat, C, D, E-flat, F, G, A, B-flat. And, the other key we're going to talk about is E-flat major.
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And we're going to do exactly the same thing here, and we'll go back to the treble clef because variety is the spice of life. Here is a stave. Here comes the treble clef. And it's E-flat major, so let's get some notes that start on E. Bottom line of the treble clef. A good place to start. And, up we go. One note in every space, on every line, until we come to the next E. It's E-flat major, so we know it's E-flat at the bottom. And therefore, it must be E-flat at the top. What's our pattern?
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Tone tone semitone tone tone tone semitone. And if we go through the scale in just the same way, we'll soon discover we're going to need some flats. Here's E-flat. Up a tone to F. Well you can see that's a tone. F to G, that's good. That's another tone. G to A is supposed to be a semitone. Oh dear. But when we look at it, we notice that G to A is actually a tone. So, we're going to have to change this note aren't we? And it's going to have to become A-flat to give us a semitone above G
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and to end up with A something. So that's going to be A-flat. And then we need a tone, to take us from A-flat to B something. So here's A-flat, we're looking for a tone. A-flat to B suddenly looks like a long why doesn't it? Because A-flat to A is a semitone, A to B-flat is another semitone, B-flat to B is another semitone. Three semitones or a tone and a half. So what do we need to do to B, to make it a tone above A-flat? There's the A-flat. There's the B. If I make my B, B-flat,
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can you see that we've got a tone? A-flat to B-flat, we've just got that one note in-between. So that B, will have to be a B-flat. B-flat to C should be a tone. And it is. C to D should be a tone. And it is. D to E-flat should be a semitone. And it is. That's how you would work out that we've got three sharps in an A major, two flats in B-flat major, three flats in E-flat major. And if you were asked to write out the scale, that's how you would do it. It's always possible of course
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that you would be asked to write out your scale descending instead of ascending. But you would still want the same pattern of notes. Let's just very quickly do one of those so we get the idea as to how we would write out a scale descending. And, let's go back to A major for a moment. We'll do it in the bass clef, shall we? And, let's start with A here. And this time, we're going to come down, descending. Every line, every space, until we get down to bottom A.
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Now remember, the pattern from the bottom up is tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone. So, don't start at the top. Start at the bottom. Tone tone semitone tone tone tone semitone. Now, even though this is going down the scale, we've learnt how to go up from the bottom. So, it's just as easy when it's going down as it is going up. If, when your going down, you start at the end of the scale and work up just as we did before. So, A to B is a tone. B to C we said was a semitone,
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so we're going to have to change the higher note of the two to a C-sharp. So we've got A to B is a tone. B to C-sharp is a tone. C-sharp to D is semitone which is good because it's supposed to be. D to E should be a tone. And sure enough, it is. E to F is supposed to be a tone, ah but E to F is only a semitone, we need to change the higher note. So, it's going to have to be F-sharp. And don't forget, always write accidentals on the left hand side of the note. F-sharp to G should be a tone,
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but actually it's looking like a semitone. So what are we going to do to G? We're going to make it G-sharp. And there we have it. G-sharp to A is the semitone at the top. So, it just sounds like a descending scale.
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But we've still worked it out, from the bottom going up. Tone tone semitone, tone tone tone semitone. Now, you may be asked to talk about key signatures for these three keys. So let's just quickly talk about that. You add on the sharps or flats in a particular order. So let's start with a treble clef, and see if we can do this. There's the treble clef. Now back in grade one, we learnt that C major has got no sharps and no flats. We learnt that G major has got one sharp.
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And that one sharp, is F-sharp. So if you were writing a key signature for the scale of G major, or for a piece of music in G major, you would write F-sharp because that's the very first sharp that appears. G major is the first scale that's got a sharp in it. It's got one sharp and it's F-sharp. And in the treble clef, we always write it on the top line. We don't write it down here we always write it on the top line. We learnt in grade one that D major, is the scale that's got two sharps.
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It's got the F-sharp that we had in G major, and it's got a new sharp called C-sharp. So we put the C-sharp there. Now we've learnt today that A major, ends up with three sharps. And you'll notice, it's got the F-sharp that we had from G major, and it's got the C-sharp that we had from D major, and now its got a new sharp for A major and it's G-sharp. So, we put that there. And you'll notice, a little pattern is starting to develop isn't it? That we start high, we go down, we come up,
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then we're going to go down. And we'll talk about what happens after that in later grades. But, that's what the key signature would look like for A major. You must have these sharps in the right order, because G major has one sharp, and that sharp is F-sharp. D major has got two sharps, and they are the F-sharp from G major plus the C-sharp. And A majors got three sharps. The F-sharp from G major, the C-sharp from D major, and now the new sharp for A major, G-sharp.
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So, they must go in the right order. And that's where you have to put them, on the treble clef stave. So in the bass clef, if we wanted to write the same key signature in the bass clef, it would look like this. We'd put the F-sharp first, and it always goes on line four. Then we put the C-sharp, and following the same pattern, it comes down just as it did there. And then we put the G-sharp up here, following the same pattern. So we start high, we go down, we come up, we go down.
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So that's what the key signature would look like, for A major in the treble clef or the bass clef. You might be asked to write the scale of A major using a key signature instead of putting the sharps and flats in along the way. So you just plot all the notes, and then you would use those key signatures depending on which clef your in. When it comes to dealing with the flats, let's just think about the key signatures we need here. There's a stave, and in the treble clef
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we learnt in F major for grade one that F major has B-flat. So let's put that first, because that's the first scale that uses a flat. It just has one flat. F major. Today we've learnt that B-flat major has got two flats. It's got B-flat and it's got E-flat. We put the E-flat at the top there. And in the bass clef, you would write the key signature for B-flat major like this. B-flat on line two and you would go up for E-flat. You mustn't put these flats or sharps in the wrong octave,
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there's a convention that we use. When it comes to E-flat major, we discovered that we have B-flat and E-flat left over from the previous keys, and we've also got A-flat. We started there, we went up, we come down for A-flat. And we'll do the same thing in the bass clef. Start there, go up, and come down for A-flat. So two flats gives us the key signature for B-flat major, three flats gives us the key signature for E-flat major. And that's just telling us,
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what we learnt when we were doing the scales. Now in terms of triads for these keys. This works just the same as it did in grade one, but we just have to think about these new keys. So, if we want a tonic triad for A major, we could write the key signature for A major that we've just learnt to do. And then we would write A, with the third note above it and the fifth note above it. Or, if you wanted to write it without a key signature, you'd write A, C-sharp,
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because there's a sharp there isn't there and E. That's what it would look like with a key signature. If you wanted to write a tonic triad for B-flat major, then you would have your key signature for B-flat major, B-flat, D, and F. The first note, the third note, the fifth note. And remember in grade one, we learnt that these triads would either be three spaces next to each other, or three lines next to each other. And the other thing you might be asked to do,
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is to look at a piece of music and to say what the key is. And to do that, you'd look through the piece and you'd say, "Ah, it's got B-flats in it "and it's got E-flats in it. So it must be in B-flat major." Or you'd look through and say, "It's got F-sharps in it, it's got C-sharps in it, "it's got G-sharps in it. So it must be in A major." So you would work out the key of a piece of music, by relating it to the scales that we've just done.
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So, there's quite a bit to take on board in that lesson. And do play it again, if you just want to recap on that. But I hope all that makes perfect sense.
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