So this week, what we want to talk about follows on from what Richard

and I illustrated last week, and that was the concept of tones and semitones.

And what we did was we picked the note C and

we applied the pattern of tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone.

And we called the result the major scale.

So what we can do is we can pick any other note and apply the

same pattern tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone

semitone, and the result is a major scale.

So, what we're going to do for the rest of this lecture is we're

going to refer to that pattern of tones and semitones as the major scale pattern.

So, we'll pick another note now I'm going to pick this note here - G.

What I'm going to do is apply the major scale pattern to that so tone, tone,

semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone.

Now you'll notice actually when we played C, we only played the white notes

on the piano, we didn't touch any of the other ones, these black notes.

When I started on G we need to play this note here.

And this is called F sharp in this context.

>> So let's take a closer look at it.

It's called F sharp because it is one semitone sharper, or higher than F.

[MUSIC]

But you might also notice that by the same rationale, we

could say [SOUND] that it's one semitone lower [SOUND] than G.

We could then call it G flat, which means one semitone lower than G.

You'll remember from last week that a semitone is a fixed interval.

[MUSIC]

There are semitones between every note that I played just then.

But you'll also notice there are places on the piano keyboard where

we have two white notes and no black notes in between them.

[MUSIC]

It happens between B and C [SOUND] and it also happens between E and F.

>> Some of you that have come to

this course as guitar payers might already recognize this.

So if you think about your E strings, for instance, if you play the

first fret on your E strings, you're more likely going to call this note F.

And that's the same if you play the first fret

on the B string, you're more likely going to call this C.

And that really just serves to illustrate, just for

a different instrument really, that the distance between B and

C, the interval B and C is a semitone,

and the interval between E and F is a semitone.

And that's why if you look back at the piano keyboard,

there isn't a black note in between these pairs of notes.

>> You might be thinking that it seems a bit arbitrary.

That you have a black note between some pairs

of white notes and there's a semitone there, and yet,

between other pairs of white notes, you get a

semitone al by itself with no black notes in between.

But actually this unevenness, this asymmetry that we get in the

spread of the note names as they repeat across the octaves.

This is something that gives eyes and our ears - more importantly

our ears kind of landmarks that we can latch on to.

>> So, a minute ago we played G major.

We started on the note G and we applied our major scale pattern.

We found that we needed to use an F sharp.

Let's pick another note this time.

Let's pick the note F, [SOUND] and apply this pattern.

So we get tone, [SOUND] tone, [SOUND] semitone [SOUND].

Again we've touched another black note there.

Tone, [SOUND] tone, [SOUND] tone, [SOUND] and a [SOUND]

semitone between E and F as we've just discussed.

Now let's look back then at this.

So we've got F [SOUND], G [SOUND].

So, a tone apart.

G, A, which is a tone apart.

And then we've got this black note.

As Nikki said, because this is a little

bit sharper than A, it's a semitone sharper than A.

We could call this A Sharp.

But it's also a semitone lower than B.

So we could call it B flat.

So which are we going to call it, in this case?

Well, as we talked about last week, scales need one of each letter name.

So, actually, when we go up from F, we're going to go F to

G, G to A, not to A sharp, because that's another type of A.

We're going to go to B flat, which is a semitone above A, or a semitone below B.

And then a tone onto C up to D, E, and

we have another semitone to take us back to our tonic, F.

>> So it's one thing to understand it, looking at the piano keyboard.

It is another thing to get it into your own practice.

You can use a keyboard app, or you can use a piano if you've

got one, or you can go into your own instrument, or you can sing.

But this time, start for yourself, do it for yourself.

Start on D.

[MUSIC]

Figure it out.

Go from D up to D, an octave higher, and then show yourself what the

pattern of tones and semitones is if

you're just using the, the plain note names.

And then, go back to that major scale pattern.

Tone, tone semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone.

And then see for yourself what note names you have

to alter in order to recreate that major scale pattern.

>> So we should make a little bit of an apology.

Because what we've been doing is talking about white notes and black notes,

and clearly that's only really relevant if we're looking at a piano keyboard.

Guitar players don't have white notes and black notes, for instance.

The reason that we're doing this, and the reason that

for this particular lecture we've made it so piano-centric

is just because the layer of the keyboard's actually a

really clear and really beautiful way to illustrate where semi-tones are.

And from that, you can build patterns of tones and semitones.

So, it is important for you understand that on your

own instrument, but just be aware that you can always come

back to this visual, and there there's Picture of a piano

keyboard in this week's supporting material on the website for you.

And as Nikki said, you can go on the internet and find

an app that will do this for you absolutely no problem as well.

>> So the way to learn this and to actually understand it is to get

it into your eyes, into your head, and into your fingers and into your ears.

So, you can practice in all these different ways.

Practice hearing and playing whole tones.

Practice hearing and playing semitones.

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