Heya,
I got the sheet music for Musical Priest, and it says it’s in Bm, which means it starts with B, A, F# on the whistle… Is is the standard key it’s played in? Because it’s also quite playable starting with A, G , E… Any idea? Thanks…
Sheet music? I thought you were cured of that affliction. Or is it just WhOA that you are cured of?
It’s nearly always played in Bm. But you’re right, it’s fun to play in A and E also. And good practice.
G might be making things unnecessarily complicated, though, don’t you tnink?
Eh thanks for your answer… which leads me to another question I always wanted to ask: where can I find information about which notes are in each scale, Bm, D, G, etc? It would then be easier for me to know in which key is some tune…
By the way, when I meant playable with A, G, E, I meant with the notes starting with “A, G, E”, is it the key of A? Argh!
I think it’s Dorian, not Minor. Usually played in B dorian, but you could also play it in A dorian (A G E A …)
[ This Message was edited by: claudine on 2002-01-15 03:13 ]
I agree, once more, with Steve Bm is the common way of doing it, I always play the tune in Am, which I started out doing on the pipes to avoid a few things the pipes don’t like to do.
Where can I get the music to this song?
Are there lyrics to it also?
Laura
On 2002-01-15 03:12, claudine wrote:
I think it’s Dorian, not Minor.
Well, is it?
What mainly distinguishes a standard minor scale from the dorian mode is the sixth degree, which is a half-step sharper in the dorian mode. So E minor has C-nat, while E dorian has C#; B minor has G-nat, while B dorian has G sharp.
If you play a careful version of this tune (one that respects the gaps in the scale) there won’t be any Gs at all, so you couldn’t really say it’s dorian or minor.
Can anyone tell us what a minor mode with no 6th should be called?
If you play a slack version and put in Gs, they will most likely be natural, which would then make it minor, or possibly sharp, which would make it dorian. Both would sound cheesy to me, but especially the G#.
On 2002-01-15 08:20, hillfolk22 wrote:
Where can I get the music to this song?Are there lyrics to it also?
Laura
It’s not a song and it’s not about priests, it’s a reel.
I think I would call a minor scall with no sixth in it a “minor scale with no sixth in it.”
But more seriously, even though I the sixth is missing, I would think that the tune is in Dorian rather than minor, because the most natural harmonic progression would be Bm A Bm A etc. (with maybe a G at the end of the parts). That kind of progression with two neighboring chords strikes me as typical for Dorian tunes. But I admit you could decide to play it “minor” and throw in F# chords and C#6 chords and Emin chords. It’s just I wouldn’t.
Here is the tune:
http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/cgi/abc/findtune?P=musical+priest
Laura, JC’s Tunefinder is always a good place to check if you trying to find a tune.
/bloomfield
[ This Message was edited by: Bloomfield on 2002-01-15 09:06 ]
The seventh degree makes the difference: A# in B minor, A natural in B dorian. The sixth degree is variable in dorian mode (as far as I know).
The seventh degree makes the difference: A# in B minor, A natural in B dorian. The sixth degree is variable in dorian mode (as far as I know).
Hmm - are you sure about this, Claudine, and if so, got any sources to back you up? I’m not anywhere near a reference library right now, but a quick check of a few sources on the web appears to confirm what I thought - i.e. that the interval between the 5th and 6th is a whole tone in dorian mode. I have found no references to variability.
(The dorian mode is neatly described as a major scale with a flattened 3rd and 7th.)
Where there is variability, I thought, is in the sixth and seventh degrees of the minor scale (so-called “harmonic” and “melodic” minor scales).
Steve: Yer right. The only thing that varies between dorian and aeolian (natural minor)is the 6th.
Joe
Peter, thanks for the correction…
Bloomfield, thanks for the tip.
Laura
Well, for the sake of agreement, rather than argument, let’s say the tune is the dorian mode but with no 6th - that should please us all.
And to add weight to this conclusion, may I revise my earlier opinion - after trying the tune just now in these various keys, I feel that if you do insist on playing the 6th, the minor version is actually far, far cheesier than the dorian one!
The missing 6th, incidentally, is what makes the tune equally easy to play in either A, E or B. I mean, if it were minor, you’d have to half-hole an F-nat in A, and if it were dorian, you’d have to get a G# somehow.
Missing notes, or gapped scales, are one of the most interesting features of Irish music, and for whistle players, tunes with gapped scales are often very easy to transpose.
Pentatonic tunes such as Out on the Ocean, Blarney Pilgrim, Christmas Eve, etc. are easy to bump up a tone from the usual “G” to “A” - and you’ll get an interesting change in feel as a result.
Ramble, ramble…
Geeze, the last few posts are mostly chinese for me, but I just want to ask my question again: I would like to know which notes are in each different scale. I don’t want a complex music theory document, is there any ressource for this? You know, the scale of D is D E F# G A B blablabla, the scale of C is blablabla, etc?
Azalin, your question is not as straightforward as it sounds because many scales can be built on any note, what with all the modes and all. If I may wax theoretical (ahem), I can think of 10 scales for each note, and there are probably more.
But if you are playing a D whistle only a few are really practical. Off the top of my head, I came up with these as the most common–
D Major:
D E F# G A B C# D
D Mixolydian:
D E F# G A B C D
E Dorian:
E F# G A B C# D E
G Maj:
G A B C D E F# G
A Dorian:
A B C D E F# G A
B Minor (Aeolian):
B C# D E F# G A B
I hope somebody checks me for typos and for scales I may have overlooked.
I also hope this answers your question, at least somewhat.
–Jay
These are just a couple of websites I found using a search for “music theory major minor scales” on Google:
http://www.jmdl.com/howard/music/keys_scales.html
http://www.zone0ne.com/bassics/html/musicthy.htm
The first has all the major scales, and how to determine the relative minor key; the second also discusses modes (dorian, mixolydian, aeolian, etc.).
Az, it’s a lot more fun not answering the question sometimes!
Jay’s scales are a good start, although as far as Irish music on the whistle is is concerned, I’d add E minor and A mixolydian, and then A minor, A major and B dorian.
If learning modes and scales off the page is not very inviting, then I invite you to pop over with one of your “méchantes grosses bouteilles de rouge” one evening and we’ll settle everything.
About that sixth again: the basic dorian scale in gregorian chant is D-E-F-G-A-B-C-D, but very often they used a Bb instead of B. But this does probably not apply to irish trad, so this point is of no importance for us. Just forget it.