In the second problem set for the class, assignment number two, you're going to encounter some
questions that ask you to situate a specific note within a specific key.
I'm going to show you some strategies for how to attack these problems.
This first one has a prompt that says G sharp is scale degree seven, that's what this carat
above the seven means.
We read it as scale degree seven in melodic minor.
First thing I'm going to do is I'm going to write myself a G sharp.
Then I'm going to think about filling in the rest of the note names of the scale.
As you remember, a scale has to have one note on each note name, A, B, C, D, and so on.
I know that G is scale degree seven, which means I'm going to put an A above it, then
I'm going to work down the line.
We need an F, we need an E, a D, C, B, and once I get to A, the repeated note, I know
to stop.
I've now got one pitch on each of these.
Next, what I'm going to do is think about the tetrachords.
As we know, a melodic minor scale is made up of a tone, semitone, tone, tetrachord.
Then we have our major tetrachord, tone, tone, semitone at the top.
We already have G sharp up to A. That's our semitone.
We know that we need a tone between G sharp and this F. Right now, F up to G sharp is
actually an augmented second, three half steps.
We want to make sure that it's only a whole tone, two half steps.
I'm going to make this one F sharp.
That works with E. Then, working down the line, D to E is a whole tone that connects
our tetrachords, D down to C, tone, C to B, semitone, B down to A, tone.
I now have a melodic minor scale that has G sharp as its seventh scale degree.
It sounds like this.
Second example, the prompt is E flat is scale degree four in a major key.
I'm going to start by drawing the treble clef.
I'm going to place my E flat right here.
Then I need to count up and down and fill in the notes of the scale.
It's the fourth scale degree.
I need to have a three, two, one below it.
Then I need a five, six, seven, and eight above it.
Then I'll simply look at my tetrachords.
In a major key, we've got two tone, tone, semitone tetrachords here.
First of all, our semitone is taken care of, D to E flat.
Working downwards, D to C is a whole tone.
C to B, however, we need to change this one.
It's a semitone right now.
We need to lower our B so that it becomes B flat to get a whole tone.
We look up to the other tetrachord, connect them with a whole tone, E flat up to F, then
we jump up to G. That's fine.
A, that's fine, and we need to change this A to B to turn it into a semitone.
I'm going to add a flat right there.
This shows us that E flat is the fourth scale degree in B flat major.
