Major and Minor: So Much Confusion!

I have a friend who, as a child, loved to noodle around on the piano (improvisation) and especially liked the sound of just playing on the black keys. She had probably heard a few musical terms tossed around, and came to believe that sound she liked was because the black keys were the "minor" keys. Of course, the important thing is that she was making music and having fun. That should certainly take priority over knowing the correct terminology. However, if you ever hope to communicate with others about music (let's say you want to play in a group of other musicians), it will behoove you to use the correct terms so you can make yourself understood. In addition, operating under a false understanding of what you are doing can limit you from other things you may wish to play in the future. (The black keys are not "minor;" the sound she created was based on a pentatonic  -- 5-tone -- scale because of the 5 black keys, which has a distinct "flavor" because of it's internal relationships.)

Almost every new student who comes to me for lessons has some degree of confusion, or out-and-out misunderstanding, of what major and minor mean in music. It's understandable they'd be confused if they are totally new to playing an instrument. But students with prior experience are also confused, because their teachers never thought to explain these terms correctly. Often, even the teacher doesn't know!

The word "major" means larger and the word "minor" means smaller. Both are originally from Latin. Ursa major is the larger constellation; ursa minor is the smaller one. If you have a major problem, it's a big problem; if you have a minor problem, it's a small one. We often conflate minor with meaning less important, due to being smaller. However, the true meaning is simply smaller. And so it is in music as well. In music, minor is never "less important."

If you've read the previous post, you'll see that major and minor never refer to a single note. A single note can never be large or small. 

Major and minor most frequently are used to describe an interval, that is, the "distance" between two tones. Within our musical scales, there are four intervals that have two "sizes," small and large. They are seconds, thirds, sixths, and sevenths. C to D-flat is a minor second (also referred to as a half step), and C to D is a major second (also called a whole step). C to E-flat is a minor third, C to E a major third. C to A-flat is a minor sixth, C to A a major sixth. C to B-flat is a minor seventh, C to B a major seventh. In all cases, the minor interval is the smaller distance, the major the larger. There are 3 intervals which do not have two sizes: fourths, fifths, and octaves. They are called "perfect." 

A major triad (3-note-chord) is so called because its first interval (starting from the root) is a major third. A minor triad is so called because its first interval is a minor third. It's really that simple. One very common misconception is that major means "happy" and minor means "sad" (or dark, somber, etc.). I would guess that least 90% of non-musicians (and brand-new students) I talk to think this is the case. However, play a major 7th, for example, and you'll find you don't get the "happy sound" you have associated with major. Happy and sad may be the emotional responses we have to those specific sounds, but they are not the meaning of the terms. (Interestingly, it appears to be universal that we experience a major chord to sound happier and a minor chord to sound darker, sadder. No one ever seems to feel the opposite. However, there is no explanation as to why we humans respond this way. It's another cosmic mystery of music!) So you mustn't confuse the actual meaning of the terms with the way we respond to them.

Major and minor can also refer to scales. Major was origianlly called Ionian and minor was originally Aeolian (from Greek). Ionian and Aeolian were two of seven possible scales (that we know of). I have read many articles about this but there doesn't seem to be clear answer as to why the names were changed. However, in Western Classical music, the "major" scale and the "minor" scales became the preferred sounds. The other five scales are now usually referred to as "modes," however, they are scales. See my post titled Modes if you are interested to learn more.

So why was Ionian renamed to major and Aeolian renamed to minor? You can look it up on Google, or use AI, and there are many different reasons given, none of which I find completely satisfactory. Since it happened hundreds of years ago, there doesn't seem to be any documentation as to why this change was made. My theory is this; in a major scale, starting from the tonic (first note) the intervals of seconds, thirds, sixths and seventh, are all "major," that is the "larger" ones. In a minor scale, thirds sixths and sevenths are all "minor," that is the smaller ones. The "perfect" intervals as well as the second remain the same in both.

Again, people hear a major scale and think it sounds happy, and minor scale not-so-happy. But remember, the sound you hear in each scale is a function of its relationships of the tones to each other. In music, the relationship is everything.

A piece of music in a major key is based on a major scale; a piece in minor is based on a minor scale. A piece of any length or complexity will not stay in the same key for the whole piece, but is identified by the scale that the piece begins in, and likely ends in.

Since the terms major and minor are used to descibe four musical entities -- the interval, the chord, the scale, and an entire piece -- it's easy to see why there is so much confusion. I hope this has cleared it up.

Black keys, White keys

 

One of the first things I do with new students, whether beginner or more advanced, is ask "Why do we have black keys and white keys?" Even if the person has played the piano for years, it is something they just don't seem to have ever thought about, because hardly anyone gets the right answer, at least not right away. 

Here are some of the responses I get (all incorrect):

"The black keys are the sharps and flats." My response: yes that's what we call them, but why do we have them? Why not all white keys?"

"We need the black keys so we can have half steps." My response is to point out that between the keys E and F, and B and C, are also half steps, but on white keys.

"The black keys are the minor keys." This is the most off-base answer of all. The terms major and minor, in music, can refer to an interval (distance between keys), a chord, or a scale. Major and minor always refer to a relationship between tones, never to a single note. There is no such thing as a minor note or a major note. More on this in another post.

"To fit all 88 keys in the space. If they were all white keys the keyboard would be too wide." Although this answer has some merit, it is still not correct.

Do you know the answer? See if you do before reading on.

All you need to do is cover up all the black keys and you will immediately see the reason. Without the black keys, you'd have an expanse of white keys, all looking alike, and you'd never to be able to tell -- visually, that is -- which key was which. If you wanted to place you hand on a specific note, it would be pure guesswork to find it quickly. The arrangement of white keys and black keys is a visual map so we can find our place. I always point out to the student that violins, clarinets, trumpets, and virtually every other instrument, does not have white and black keys, and they use the same notes that piano does (or more precisely, a subset of the notes a piano uses). They have other ways for the player to find a specific note, mostly by "feel." But of couse, all those instruments have far fewer notes to cover, so doing it by feel is possible. For the pianist it would not be possible. (I always like to mention that your voice also doesn't have white and black keys.)

Likewise, if the arrangement of keys were white-black-white-black, like stripes, you'd have the same problem of not being able to tell the keys apart. The very ingenious arrangement of a group of two black keys and a group of three black keys makes every note within the octave look unique. Even if the only note you know is middle C, you found it because of its relationship with the nearest black key.

Clearly, many people have played the piano without ever having consciously thought about this. It's just something we take for granted. But for new students -- and even a few who are not so new -- I find it important to understand this. There are so many misconceptions about the black keys. Some people will say the "sound different" than the white keys. (But if I play a key and they are not looking, they can't tell whether it was a white or black key.) However, all you need to do is look inside the piano (if you have an acoustic piano) and see that every string is hit by a hammer, and there is no way to tell which of those strings correspond to a white key vs. a black key. Some beginning students even get a kind of phobia about the black keys, like they are somehow more difficult to play. So I want the student to understand that our piano keyboard arrangement is purely a visual map, and doesn't have some "deeper" meaning about the tones themselves.

My next post will be about the widespread confusion about the terms "major" and "minor."