The Major Scale and the Matrix

Today we are going to start a new section on creating melodies in Reason using the Matrix. But first we need to understand a little more music theory. In music, musicians use scales as the frame for their melodies. There are two basic types of scales, the Major Scale, which has a happy sound, and the minor scale, which has a somber sound. You hear the Major Scale a lot in Pop Music. And you hear the minor scale a lot in Hip Hop music. Today we're going to learn the Major Scale. And more specifically the C Major Scale.

The Major Scale is made up of seven distinct notes, plus an eighth which duplicates the first an octave higher. These notes correspond to the syllables "Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Ti, (Do)". The simplest major scale to write or play on the piano is C major, the only major scale not to require sharps or flats, using only the white keys on the piano keyboard:

1. Open Reason
2. Make sure you have a Mixer 14:2
3. Create a NN19 Digital Sampler
4. Click on the Folder in the upper left hand corner of the NN19.
5. In the Patch Browser, click Reason Factory Sound Bank: NN19 Sampler Patches: Piano: BRIGHTPIANO.smp
6. Now that we have our sound loaded we need a way to play it...ENTER THE MATRIX
7. Go to the Create Menu and select the Matrix, all the way at the bottom of the menu.
8. We want to use the Matrix to play a C Major Scale.
9. Look at the Matrix, do you see the keyboard? We can use this to help us put the NOTES (the red rectangles) on all the white keys.
10. Below the NOTES in the Matrix, do you see the lines? These move up and down and control the VOLUME.
    
11. To make the C Major Scale we are going to move every other note up to the next white key. (I moved the NOTES in between all the way up to the top so that they wouldn't be in my way.)
12. After I've moved all my NOTES, I want to turn the VOLUME all the way down on the NOTES I don't want to hear. After you finish this step, your MATRIX should look something like this.
13. Listen to your scale, does it sound like Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do?
14. Save in your folder as C Major Scale.
15. On your blog write about the following questions:
16. What is a Scale?
17. What does a Major Scale sound like? Who uses it?
18. What is a Melody?