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The Tragedy of The Major Scale
How great music defies expectations
The major and minor scale are the two most important scales in the history of Western music.
They are related to each other by some fairly simple adjustments. The third, the sixth and the seventh note of the major scale are flattened by a half step to obtain the respective minor scale.
But with these slight changes comes a new soundscape, a new sense of balance, a new palette of expression.
The major scale is usually considered to be happy, light, humorous, joyful, while the minor scale is associated with dark, brooding, melancholic, dramatic music.
But while these stereotypes have their justification (and in popular music are milked without end) in great music, as in all great art, it’s not always as easy as that. Expectations are there to be played with, and the hallmark of the genius is that it takes untrodden paths, discovers new ways of saying things that are difficult to say, that maybe no has said before.
I think in no musician did the play between major and minor, with their respective shades and colors, with the dialectic between light and dark ever find such wonderful, heartwrenching use as in Franz Schubert’s music.
