The Tritone

     These next concepts will crucial to understand not only tonal harmony but also to understand how we can use this knowledge to escape the tonal pull exerted by certain chord types and instead work in an atonal or modal context. That said, a tritone is an augmented 4th or diminished 5th interval with three whole-steps. …

Scale Degrees and Leading Tone

     In Western music, a diatonic scale is a heptatonic scale where each tone is a degree of the scale. Each degree refers to the relative position of a particular note to the tonic, the first and main note of the scale from which each octave is assumed to begin. Degrees are useful for indicating the …