The Major Scale (Noob Theory 3/10) - Pico-8 Music Tutorial #39

By the end of this tutorial, you should be able to:

• Input the major scale in Pico-8
• Hear the tonic of the major scale as the centre of stability and resolution
• Interpret intervals as being stable/consonant or unstable/dissonant
• Use cycles of stability and instability as the basis for a composition

There are many ways to combine tones and semitones to create scales. One of the most common is the major scale, which follows this sequence:

tone – tone – semitone – tone – tone – tone – semitone  

In Pico-8, there are three ways to find the major scale:

The first way is with experience and practice. One of the topics of traditional beginner theory is building major scales from any note. However it’s notated, there’s often a distinction made between semitones and whole tones. For example:

An easy way to find the major scale in Pico-8 is by typing all the keys on the row from ‘Q’ (QWERTYUI). This gives you the C Major scale. From here, you can select all of the notes are transpose it to any key. 

The third way to find the major scale is by starting with the chromatic scale. In the volume column, you can express the tone-semitone sequence above in groups of two (tone) and one (semitone).

Now that we have the major scale, we’re starting to open up a pandora’s box of tonality (check out the Wiki link below for supplementary reading). Keeping it as simple as possible, tonality represents a hierarchy of tones and relationships that create stability and instability through time. 

For example, the first note of the major scale will be heard as the most stable. We call it the ‘tonic’ or the ‘root’ of the scale. As you play the notes of the C major scale, hopefully you’re hear that all of the notes gravitate and want to resolve to C. Similarly, when the two notes of the major scale are played together simultaneously, there are some combinations that sound more stable and consonant than others.

Compositionally, one thing you can play with is create these cycles of stability and instability over time. Start with a short, basic cycle and repeat it a few times. At some point, you may desire a change, in which case you can write a complementary section with a different cycle. 

There are hundreds of music books on formalizing these relationships (what is stable/consonant & unstable/dissonant). There is always room for a subjective perception and ultimately, your best tool for figuring that out is your own ear. Ask yourself when you’re listening: do I hear tension and a desire for motion and resolution? Or do I hear finality and a place of rest and stability? When I’m composing, I constantly asking myself these questions in relation to short and long sections of music. Stability, consonance, instability, and dissonance can all be perceived in micro and macro scales of time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tonality