Ok, so Musical Chef figured out that mixing a bunch of pies together creates wondrous new flavours. He sold so many pies after this discovery that he became altogether mad and started mixing pies willy-nilly. He tried to shove a banana-cheese-broccoli pie down an unsuspecting customer’s throat. The outcome was not good – neither for the customer’s digestive system, nor for MC’s reputation.
MC was just realising that there had to be some sort of logic to this mixing business. He couldn’t just bung any three flavours together and expect the result to be palatable. There had to be a method to the madness. He was diligent and studious; so, he sat down and tried to analyse the underlying rules for mixing (as a modern-day youngster, you can try the banana-cheese-broccoli pie and may even like it. But be warned, the minute you wear a fancy musical top-hat and breeches, you will spit it out!).
He found that each pie (ok, let’s just call it a note! I’m sure you realise that’s what a musical pie is) had something called a Tonality. According to this rule, you could make a chord (mixed pie) by simultaneously sounding two or more notes that were in the same Key.
Whoa! What’s a Key?
Remember the Naturals of Singerpore? Seethapathy (or C) was the father of the family and Gina (or G) was the mother. This tells us that the Naturals of Singerpore were based on the Key of C and all the family members were part of the Key of C. Now, if Seethapathy wants to have a chord in his name, he needs Gina and Eve – Gina for basic support and Eve for flair. So, the C-major chord is basically formed by the triad of C-E-G. If Seethapathy wants to show he is happy (C Major), then Eve stays Natural. If Seethapathy wants to show he is sad, angry, pensive, scared or any other negative emotion (C Minor), then he sends Eve to eat at the Accidentals and come back one semitone flatter as E-flat! When Seethapathy creates a chord around him, he is the ‘Root’ (the first note), Eve is the ‘Third’ and Gina is the ‘Fifth’.
Now, suppose Efron (F) wants to be the Root. Let’s try and work out which family members he would need to make a chord. Skip one kin and you have the Abe (the third from F); skip one from Abe and you have Seethapathy (the fifth from F). So the F Major triad is F-A-C. This type of chord which is formed with the 1, 3 and 5 notes is called Common Practice and gives you the most basic chord for any note. Once you have a Key, you use its Tonality to create chord progressions…. (oooh). Don’t be confused, I promise I’ll explain later.
Do you have a piano or a keyboard at home? If you do, try and work out the Common Chord for each note. If you don’t…. don’t just sit there reading this; pester your mom to get you one right now!
Game: >What a soup!
Check out the slideshow and try your hand at the game we have for you.
