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5.5. Special Features
The KeyStep Pro has various special features that you can use to add spice and variation to
your sequences:
5.5.1. Scales
Scales express emotion in music. A single melodic line can evoke many emotions, but when
you add chord notes from the scale to that melodic line, the feeling will become much
stronger. When you add notes of a major scale, the result sounds forceful and happy,
whereas adding notes of a minor scale can make the same melodic line seem sad. At least,
that might be your response if you were born in a culture dominated by western music. In
other cultures, the response to major and minor scales may be different.
A standard (chromatic) scale consists of twelve notes: C-C#-D-D#-E-F-F#-G-G#-A-A#-B.
Every scale is a selection of these twelve notes.
Most common scales only use seven notes, except for the pentatonic scale, which uses five
notes. By leaving out certain notes, each scale evokes a very specific emotional effect.
The most widely used scale in western music is the C major or C Ionian scale: play the
white keys on a piano ascending from C to C' and what you hear is the C major scale. Of
the twelve notes in the chromatic scale, C major uses C D E F G A B (C'). Leaving out certain
notes creates gaps. Some of these gaps, known in musical terminology as
intervals
, are
whole-tone gaps; the others are semitone gaps. The interval from C to D is a whole tone;
from E to F a semitone.
C major has a specific series of intervals: tone, tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone.
This is known as the Ionian mode.
However, if you play the white keys on the keyboard ascending from D to D', you get a
different series of intervals: tone, semitone, tone, tone, tone, semitone, tone. This is known as
the Dorian mode.
If you now start on C and play a scale using this new series of intervals, you play a C Dorian
scale.
108 Arturia - User Manual Keystep Pro - Making Tracks
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