Beginner impro Circle (or cycle) of 4ths and 5ths

[jadoube]

You got something against heptonics? Was going to use 'sextonics' but spared the board's blushes.

Someone will introduce Scottish chanters and then we'll have to specify whether it is really F# or F.

The Scottish chanters were at Murrayfield last weekend.
They'll be joining the choir in the Millenium stadium on saturday.

The less said about the FF#wrench the better.🙁

 

[thehunt]

Can't help you with the minors as i have not learnt them myself yet.
I am with altolady i also use a simple phrases to help me as i think word associtaion is easier.
G ood, D ogs, A lways E at, B ones, F ast, just count on yr fingers how many sharps.

Or for the flats
F ather, B E A D then a G at the end which i find an easy word to remember.
I am just starting to play around the circle of fourths on the sax.
Hope this helps as well. Rgds Phil

 

[JasonC]

Thanks for all your help.

I think the phrases are a good idea and I like the idea about the cards, I probably won't do it as cards but I could put the scales on my wall by my desk (seeing as I'm there most of the time!) which I can keep looking up at.

After looking through a new scales book I bought, there is quite a lot to go through! but I'm hoping that I can start and play some proper tunes before I've learnt them all.

 

[kevgermany]

Lots of stuff in C, G, D, F, and if you're lucky some or all of the sharp/flat notes will be missing from the tune. Have fun and let us know how you're getting on.

Remember there are alternative fingerings for some notes, Bb will probably be the first you need to know. So learn to play F scale with both fingerings.

 

[kevgermany]

You got something against heptonics? Was going to use 'sextonics' but spared the board's blushes.

Certainly not, it's one reason I abuse the ellipsis...

Someone will introduce Scottish chanters and then we'll have to specify whether it is really F# or F.

Dudelsacks are always betwixt and between. And don't forget the temperaments, either... Maybe we can even things out - or should I say just equal things up...

 

[ArgoPete]

Hi all
I have followed an unusual course into theory. When I decided to start learning I rapidly became fed up with the approach of most books. It seemed a bit like doing a jigsaw in the dark. So I started a Youtube hunt. Gosh there is some junk interspersed with pure gold.
I found the Circle of Fifths and thought hey this is the Rosetta Stone to the Piano roadmap. My eternal thanks to www.musictheoryvideos.com and www.randscullard.com. I got the basic hang of it quite rapidly then like peeling an onion it started to reveal more and more.
That was when I realised that more than a few jazz players, Jamie Aebersold for example, write it clockwise in Fourths rather than Fifths.
I am quite happy coming home in a chord progression using it anti-clockwise on the classical layout so I am wondering if I have missed something about setting it out the other way. I found www.lotusmusic.com and backcycling as I dived deeper into the wonders of Dorian and Mixolydian. Yet I still feel that Jamie and others have a very good reason for doing it their way.
Now I have found the great group at cafesaxophone (if only my fingers would stop typing saxophonecafe by accident, I am sure that Japanese are great players but their language escapes me :-( ) I feel happier about getting sensible answers. By the way my Damascus moment happened over Easter so by the time I got back to my piano teacher I was way down my new road. He was amazed at my discussion, after 30 years of teaching I am the first to come at it this way, so he and I have a great time discussing music theory way past my finger capacity.

 

[Colin the Bear]

A fifth one way is a fourth the other. I think music is the only system where 5th + 4th = 8th

 

[Tenor Viol]

I have always understood it as the circle of fifths
C-G (0 - 1#)
D-A (2#-3#)
E-B (4#-5#)
F#-C# (6#-7#)

etc.

 

[BigMartin]

A fifth one way is a fourth the other. I think music is the only system where 5th + 4th = 8th

Yeah, I hate that. As a mathematician (retired) I find it truly repulsive. You need to count stuff like this from zero. If only a second had been called a first (ie the first step up or down from where you started---a "unison" is a zero interval after all), a third had been a second (two notes away in the scale) etc we wouldn't have this kind of unpleasantness. Then 5 + 4 = 8 would be replaced by the perfectly sensible 4 + 3 = 7. I suppose you'd then have to call an octave a septave, but IMO that would be a price well worth paying.

Too late to change it now, of course. AAAAAAAAAARGH!!!
😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡

 

[ArgoPete]

Love that one Colin, made me think for a moment.
FED C DEFG It does of course depend on which way one is counting and the C is common when talking Diatonic.
One of the things that really messed me up in the beginning is that when talking Chromatic one counts intervals not notes and Diatonic one talks actual notes.
As for the word mathematics, please forget it. That simply puts people off. Music is a natural element and owes nothing to mathematics although like any tool simple arithmetic can assist. If a person can arrive at a lesson on the correct day (7 in a week and a Diatonic set) at the correct time (12 on a standard clock and a chromatic set) and pay the correct money for the bus fare (100 cents in the dollar/pound and 100 cents in a semitone 12 Tone Equal Temperament) they know all the arithmetic they will ever need in music.
Yes I am familiar with the mathematical wonders of Iannis Xenakis see http://www.sabinepyrker.at/multimedia_en.php
but he depends on music, music does not depend on him.
Sorry BigMartin I could not disagree more about the use of zero. As a computer analyst/programmer/accountant all my life I have been frustrated by the fact that people like Codd did not understand the concept of zero. Yes his infamous 12 rules of database are actually 13, counting from zero is a nonsense. Euclid had it correct when he defined a point as having position but neither breadth nor width nor length. That is it is where two objects meet. Zero is a point on the number line, above it one has a dollar below it one owes a dollar.
Now of course if somebody can answer my question about the perceived advantage of going clockwise for Flats as opposed to going clockwise for Sharps as in the classical way I would be delighted.
Apologies for the rant but it does bug me that people are put off music theory because the mention of maths brings back bad school memories. As one lady said to me only last week "As long as my bottom points to the ground A is not a number". She thinks I am weird because I like reading books about why E=MCsquared. (Oops can't remember how to do a superscript outside of Word.

 

[kevgermany]

The difference between fourths and fifths is simply direction.

Why fourths instead of fifths? Jazz guys tend to work that way.

 

[jbtsax]

I would respectfully disagree that music owes nothing to mathematics. Without the 12th root of 2 there would be no tempered scale.

 

[kevgermany]

I would respectfully disagree that music owes nothing to mathematics. Without the 12th root of 2 there would be no tempered scale.

Nit picking, but I think you mean 'equal temperament scale', not 'tempered scale'.

 

[kevgermany]

But Martin, mathematicians also use the same symbol for different meanings. Like the +. It has different meanings in addition and logic.

Computer guys are worse, because it's used for both of those and concatenation, depending on language and context of course....

But I agree with you about interval names. Most confusing, although I'm used to it now.

 

[ArgoPete]

Hi Kev I think I answered my own question when I did FED C DEFG . People tend to find it easier with the English language to read Left to Right, top to bottom. Something I pay great attention to when designing computer screen layouts. You are quite correct about programmers, a more opinionated group convinced their method is the only way would be hard to find 🙂
Regarding 12th root of 2. I doubt that many artistic musicians would understand that but they can easily get chopping a bit of string up which is effectively what Pythagoras did when sorting out the mathematical reason for fifths which the Sumerians had carved on a stone several thousand years earlier. In fact it is likely that he used an instrument very similar to the tea chest bass of my skiffle youth.
As for Tempered v Temperament the semantics of English cover both as in
http://www.phy.mtu.edu/~suits/scales.html

The "equal tempered scale" was developed for keyboard instruments, such as the piano, so that they could be played equally well (or badly) in any key. It is a compromise tuning scheme. The equal tempered system uses a constant frequency multiple between the notes of the chromatic scale. Hence, playing in any key sounds equally good (or bad, depending on your point of view).

 

[Tenor Viol]

Yeah, I hate that. As a mathematician (retired) I find it truly repulsive. You need to count stuff like this from zero. If only a second had been called a first (ie the first step up or down from where you started---a "unison" is a zero interval after all), a third had been a second (two notes away in the scale) etc we wouldn't have this kind of unpleasantness. Then 5 + 4 = 8 would be replaced by the perfectly sensible 4 + 3 = 7. I suppose you'd then have to call an octave a septave, but IMO that would be a price well worth paying.

Too late to change it now, of course. AAAAAAAAAARGH!!!
😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡

As an assembler programmer, I always had to check whether counting was starting from 0 or 1...

 

[kevgermany]

As an assembler programmer, I always had to check whether counting was starting from 0 or 1...

as a logician 1

 

[aldevis]

The difference between fourths and fifths is simply direction.

Why fourths instead of fifths? Jazz guys tend to work that way.

I respectfully disagree:
The cycle of fourths is also known as cycle of dominants (that is not a sport event for perverts).
Each key is the dominant of the next one.

 

[aldevis]

I would respectfully disagree that music owes nothing to mathematics. Without the 12th root of 2 there would be no tempered scale.

It's the other way round: mathematics (and physics) owe to music.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincenzo_Galilei

 

[Targa]

as a logician 1

Logically it should be zero because that's how old you are when you are born.
A child between 12 and 24 months is one year old, a child before 12 months is zero, so you count your age from zero.