4 18. 19. 2c. 2i. 22. RUDIMENTS AND THEORY OF MUSIC The Flat ()) lowers a note one semitone in pitch: The Natural (4) restores the note to its original pitch: Gsharp G Bilat B CONSTRUCTION OF THE MAJOR SCALE A Scale (Latin ‘scala’ a ladder) is an alphabetical succession of sounds ascending or descending from a starting note. Beginning with the note C, the succeeding white notes of the keyboard form a Major Scale, the only kind of scale that we are as yet considering, though as will be discovered later, there are other kinds. It is the position of tones and semitones that decides the kind of scale. The eight notes of the Major Scale can be divided into two groups, each containing four notes. Each of these groups is called a Tetrachord (Greek tetra = four, chorde = string or note). : {st Tetrachord 2nd Tetrachord semitone semitone [Doh Ray Me Fah Soh Lah Te Doh’ It will be seen that in these two tetrachords, the semitones occur in exactly the same place, i.e. between the third and the fourth notes. Between all other notes the interval is a tone.