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Hoots : Is true to say in which scales or tonality I was wondering when we want to ask someone about a piece of music , I could say what the scale of that music is or the tonality of that. Which one is true - freshhoot.com

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Is true to say in which scales or tonality
I was wondering when we want to ask someone about a piece of music , I could say what the scale of that music is or the tonality of that.
Which one is true


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Maybe think of it with an analogy.

A painter's palette has lots of mixed colors but un-arranged on the palette in no particular order.

Put the colors in a specific order on the canvas and you get the gradations of a sunset or a rainbow.

When talking about a picture's palette it refers to the un-arranged colors of the palette. Like a monochrome palette.

In music a tonality is like a painter's palette. It's a set of notes in no particular order.

If all those tones are put in a particular order - a step wise order for a full octave - you have a scale. It's a particular melodic treatment of the tones in a tonality.

In music you say a composition is in a tonality. That's the music palette.

Key is a specific kind of tonality using the major/minor system. You can have other tonalities beside the major/minor system. Blues and modal are two common types. So, music could be in tonalities like the key of D minor or a blues in B flat or a folk tune in C Mixolydian.

As a hierarchy...

Tonal music: the music has some tonal center

Specific tonality: key, mode, etc. the palette of tones

scales may or may not be a melodic feature used in the music


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Tonality is the key of a piece. It has a bit to do with scale notes, but that's all.

There are often times in any piece where diatonic notes won't do the job, so talking in terms of a 'scale' is pointless.

Saying somethng is in, say, C major, doesn't automatically mean that the only notes in there will be C D E F G A and B. Music doesn't work like that.

We learn initially that it actually does, but that's to simplify things for beginners. Unfortunately, that piece of info. seems to stick - which is where we are here.


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