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Whole Tones and the Whole Tone Scale (Noob Theory 2/10) – Pico-8 Music Tutorial #38

Added 2018-09-13 14:01:00 +0000 UTC

Tutorial #2 on music theory in Pico-8. Hope you like! As always, I appreciate all feedback, good and bad.

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

Differentiate between a semitone and a whole tone
Input the whole tone scale in Pico-8
Find the complementary whole tone scale in Pico-8
Use the complementary whole tone scale as a way to develop a composition

A whole tone is the 2nd shortest distance between two notes, and is what you get when you play two notes two semitones apart. When you sequence consecutive whole tones together, you get the whole tone scale (C-D-E-F#-G#-A#).

An interesting thing about the whole tone scale is that all of the notes NOT in this scale, themselves create a whole tone scale (C#-D#-F-G-A-B).

One way to easily find the whole tone scale is to start with the chromatic scale, and delete every 2nd note. If you transpose these six notes up one semitone (Shift+2), you’ll have all the notes in the complimentary scale.

This complimentary scale can be used for contrast and development. With a simple semitone transposition, you can create a 2nd section, and double your composition’s length. In the video tutorial, the form of the music is AABB. It’s a simple trick, but can be the basis of your composition’s form (AABB, CCDD, EEFF)

More information on whole tones and the whole tone scale can be found here:

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