Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Composer's Lounge whole tone or whole step - terms?

No, there's not even a slight hesitation . I have to stop and think when I translate it into whole notes and quarter notes, though. I have got a bit better at this through using Finale, where the shortcuts are "q" for quarter note, "e" for eighth etc.

With my littlies, I tend to use Kodaly time-names a fair bit (you know, ta, ta-a, ti-ti.

It depends on the context. In the US, you
would say "go up a half-step" or "go
down a half-step." The phrase "go up/down
a half-tone" (or just the term "half-tone")
is avoided in the US in almost all contexts.
Similarly, you would say "go up/down
a whole-step." However, the
term "whole-step" is awkward in adult
speech in the US. This sounds like something you
would say to a child. Thus, you'd might
hear instead, "go up/down a major second."

The term "whole-tone" would not be used
in casual speech, as in "go up/down a
whole-tone." This term would be reserved
for only the most serious theoretical discussions.

The term "semitone" would not be used
in casual speech in the US, as in "go up/down
a semitone." This term would be reserved
for serious theoretical discussions only.

Thank you, Gyro.

Had any lately?

Betty,

There are eight notes, but only seven intervals between them.

A tetrachord is WWH or TTS. 4 notes separated by 3 intervals.

The two tetrachords are separated by a W (T).
So it is
WWH W WWH
or
TTS T TTS

Rich

Thank you Rich, I know that.

If you are teaching a young person how to find notes in tetrachord formation it is important to show each and every note of the 8 note tetrachord pattern.

The key note must be included as the starting place.

In key of C, the C is the first and last note to play.

Learning tetrachords is about which note to play - which note sounds - it is not about the distance of the interval between except to help us find the note to play. The notes that gets placed on the music staff in major scale order.

8 is the accountability note.

In teaching someone else, it needs to be explained as I am doing. If you have never taught someone sitting next to you to do tetrachords (and lets ask that you have also taught all 12 degrees as the starting point of the tetrachords, and then written them on the music, or had access to show the written music as the outcome of your work in finding the 8 notes of the tetrachord.

I am asking for accurate work and accurate explanation.

You are leaving out some things if you do not provide what I think is the most important note of the sequence - the keynote.

* W W H is this not a tetrachord?
* W W H is the second tetrachord, yes?
Both are joined together by a whole step.
Joined by a whole step to another tetrachord?

Therefore the formula is:

* W W H *W W W H
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Do you use fingers LH 5 4 3 2 and 5H 2 3 4 5 in teaching the tetrachord from keynote to keynote, or do you count the intervals between with your pointer or your eyes?

Using the fingering for a tetrachord position may enlighten why this is necessary to be explained this way in teaching others to play tetrachords to form the major scales.

C D E F G A B C
5 4 3 2 2 3 4 5 (Fingering Left to Right)

Explore this with the other notes on which a scale could start, and you have achieved what I am saying.

When you take a short cut you do not get all of the instruction or the understanding at one time.

Finding the distances between notes says little (minimum) about how and why one would use my approach.

To teach comprehension, my job is to identify all 8 notes of the major scale using tetrachords, being able to finger them consistently, being able to identify them my name, knowing how to write them on the music, and understanding key signatures and sightreading scales accurately because they have been learned in every potential domain of teaching. (Visual, tactile, Aural.)

I am teaching major scale degrees when I teach tetrachords and I expect the information to last a life time if done properly with a focused student.

So, those who are not in agreement with me, or haven't read my posts about tetrachords, believe me, I am not off in what I am preaching here.

If you would follow through what I am saying, just maybe you would see the difference.

A teacher not knowing or using tetrachords to teach with is really doing injustice to the learning of major scales, and all other scales.

Patterns is what music is built upon, let's teach patterns. Tetrachord being 8 notes, needs 8 notes to discuss the intervals with - it is the 8 notes that are the answers you are looking for.

The tetrachord pattern is the helping device (pattern) to accomplish that. Every major scale needs 8 tones. Thus you need to account for the key note (the first tone you are building upon).

I think this difference in opinion between us is an important one to seriously consider by checking out what I am saying at the piano using the suggested fingering and writing the results of the named notes on paper.

Are we teaching in depth, or are we short-cutting?

Betty, the fact that someone may not use your notation (the asterisk representing the starting note) does not mean that they are not teaching the concept. I think this is the point.

There's also a language problem. A scale does not have 8 "tones" in the British sense of the word. It has 8 notes.

Also, the use of tetrachords seems to be something of a matter of preference among teachers. It's basically a tool for teaching students to find the notes of any given scale. Other teachers simply use the "W W H W W W H" approach just as effectively.

And another matter of language, a 'tetrachord' has four notes in it. The notes in a major scale make up two tetrachords, both of which have the same intervallic content.

I also think it's a mistake to assume that student understanding is dependent upon the method of instruction. Different students understand in different ways. I have seen students' eyes opened by the tetrachord explanation, and I have seen students in the same class become completely confused.

If it was possible for a single explanation to guarantee student understanding, there would be only one theory textbook. No others would be necessary. But teaching theory is often a matter of preference. Just as in piano pedagogy, there are many different flavors of theory pedagogy, all of which are valid when the right students and teachers connect.

Oh rot!

I have repeatedly said that I never heard of tetrachords until I watched a college professor, mine, teaching them to other vocal students who had no instrument to relate to physically.

Meanwhile, whose of us who played instruments well all knew all the scales backwards, forwards and upside down. We were bored.

You keep preaching the gospel of tetrachords as if it is the solution to all problems, and you insist that your method of teaching them is the only way.
Good grief, do you think we are all morons? You can't MOVE a whole step without starting somewhere. W to me means to MOVE a whole step, from some point. OK, if you feel the need to put in an asterisk, fine. But there are SO many ways you could use these patterns, creatively.

How about one per key?

F = F G A Bb
C = C D E F
G = G A B C
D = D E F# G

Just learn the first four notes of any scale. Just four. Then combine sets.

F set + C set = F scale.
C set + G set = C scale.
G set + D set = G scale.

This is not rocket science. There are unlimited ways to think about this and combine, morph, play around.

The first four notes always go:

WWH

OR
* W W H

OR
X-2-4-5

OR
X-2-2-1

The METHOD does not matter. It's the pattern itself that matters, and the way people think patterns and internalize them is not the same from person to person. I just throw different solutions at different people, looking for something that makes the quickest and most intuitive connection. The same method most definitely does not work for all people.

Some people count keys but don't make a quick "sound connection". Some people just link sound to keys, at first, and analyze later. Some use key counting *and* sound, from the beginning. But no matter what you do, the tetrachord system is key counting. Everyone does not count the same way.
Are we adapting our teaching to individuals, or are we insisting that all individuals adapt to our method?

This highlights an important point. I would think that most of the teachers on this board are teaching in depth. It would seem impossible to really set out how you teach in a forum. I teach in teaching units, for example, which means a sequence of lessons, activities, and assignments which are based on well thought out aims, objectives, method and processes, which is what teaching is about. Seasoned with this is the interaction with the actual student within whatever situation and context you find yourself.

If any teacher describes something, I believe I am seeing a sliver of something larger which has many dimensions in time. I would hate anyone to think that the fragment of a larger exercise that I posted the other day was a "how to" on teaching scales, especially since it is not meant to teach scales - though ripped out of the context of that particular discussion it seems to have been considered such. I am not qualified to post any "how to", and even if I were, I'm not sure that I would because the entire teaching unit could not be sufficiently presented: time line, intermeshing of different elements, tools and support material etc.

The question I quoted is an important one. I wouldn't begin to know what a "shortcut" looks like, but it certainly doesn't sound like a good idea. The warning is an important one.

Back on topic, now.... ?

Hey, this feels a bit naughty entering the 'composer's lounge'. I've never been in here before.

On topic - We (UK) say tones and semitones. We do know what whole and half steps are though. Time names are controversial. Most of my colleagues use semibreve, minim etc. but I use whole note, half note. The fraction names are more useful IMO because you can relate the length of one note to another. It also helps with understanding time signatures. People over here can get quite irate about it.

Off topic again - If I were to walk a mile I would not need to explain that I am walking a *mile. If you play the tetrachord on C you already have your starting note. I can't see the need for the *. Sorry Betty. If it works for you then great.

Thank you Chris. When it was first pointed out to me that the terminology that I learned might not be familiar everywhere, it seemed important to see what is actually what across the English speaking world. Communication about ideas could go serious amiss, otherwise.

"tone" is used in the UK and Australia to mean an interval of two semitones, or two half steps, or one whole step. But in another part of the world it means a pitch. I didn't know that one week ago. How about everyone else? We could talk right past each other. This is just one example.

There was a link a page back where cadences were given different names. What else?

The theory book that I use is the one on which RCM exams are based. They told me that 100,000 students per annum write the exams in Canada. So there are an awful lot of people learning this terminology. But there has to be an awful lot of students doing the same thing in the US, Australia, the UK, New Zealand, according to whatever system is prevalent there. Suddenly we're internation meeting in one place and talking to each other. "hemidemisemiquaver" tends to stand out , but two meanings for "tone" don't.

"Step" is probably more common, but it doesn't really matter much.

You're right, it doesn't matter. "Tone" matters if it is misunderstood to mean pitch and an interval is meant. If something is ambivalent depending on background, maybe that's what matters the most.

You .... you mean ..... there are composers in here? It just looked like the ...... teachers forum to me.

Some of us are teachers and composers.
But what are you doing out of the Parents' Forum!!? Get back there immediately

I've come to the conclusion that we are actually in a giant ship underwater that sometimes springs a leak, so that things from one forum leak into the other. The ship shape shifts from time to time so that everything looks odd and unfamiliar. Tone and tenor can be more than one thing, and often not what we think.

Now THAT is funny!

I'm thinking maybe we should make up a song before we get kicked out?