If you’ve had any formal music training, or have studied any music theory in your own time, you will know that the C major scale is for some reason considered “special”. It has no flats or sharps, and is produced by playing all of the white keys on a piano, starting from C.
Why should this be? Why “C” and not “A”?
Well, here’s what I think. “A” is important. It’s the note (440Hz) that orchestras tune up to before practicing or before a concert. And if you think about your modes, the C major scale can be used to play 7 different modes, including:
- C ionian
- D dorian
- E phrygian
- F lydian
- G myxolydian
- A aeolian
- B locrian
So each and every one of the modes mentioned above has no sharps or flats. You’ll notice that the 6th one in that list is A aeolian, which is A minor. So it seems to me that A minor is the “special” scale, or key, if there is such a thing. By special, all I actually mean is that at some point when musical notation was being formed, someone had to pick a starting point. They called it “A”, and they chose the minor scale, NOT the major scale. Only at some point later on, someone must have thought that A minor was too sad and found that the relative scale C major was much more chirpy. Indeed, even the 440Hz value for A was only arrived at very recently, and is still controversial.
No scale can really be thought of as “special” except in the realms of musical theory and notation, all of which has been ordered and devised by human beings to try and make some sense of the physics of sound vibrations. All scales are equal in a sense that once you are in a scale or a key, you can relatively reproduce the same notes, chord progressions and tunes that you can in any other scale or key. And theroetically speaking you can continue any scale infinitely upwards or downwards, although it quite quickly reaches pitches of such high or low frequencies that the human ear can not hear.
Also bear in mind that all of this relates mainly to western music, which comparitively speaking is still quite young compared to music from many other parts of the world. It has more order, and more rules in place; rules which sometimes sound best when broken or bent.
I’ve not mentioned the guitar yet in this article. The guitar (in standard tuning) is quite well suited to songs written in A minor (Stairway to Heaven, Babe I’m gonna leave you, Anji…). Coincidence? Perhaps.
Tags: a minor, circle of fifths, modes, theory
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