How to determine the tone of the melody?

It happens that a melody comes to mind and you can't beat it out with a stake. You want to play and play, or even better write it down so as not to forget. Or, at the next rehearsal of the group, you are learning a new song from a friend, frantically picking up chords by ear. In both cases, you come across the fact that you need to understand in what key to play, sing or record.

A schoolboy thinks about how to determine the tone of a melody, examining a musical example in a solfeggio lesson, and an unhappy accompanist who was asked to play along to a vocalist requiring the continuation of a concert two tones lower.

How to determine the tone of the melody: the solution

If you do not go deep into the wilds of musical theory, then to determine the tone of the melody, the algorithm is as follows:

1. we define tonic;
2. determine the mode;
3. tonic + fret = tonality name.

He who has ears, let him hear: he will simply determine the tonality by ear!

Tonic is the most stable sounding level of the mode, a kind of main support. If you pick up the tone by ear, then try to find a sound where you can finish the melody, put an end. This sound will be tonic.

Unless the melody is an Indian stew or Turkish mugham, it is not so difficult to determine the mood. "On hearing" we have two main frets - major and minor. The major has a light, joyful shade, the minor - a shade dark, sad. Usually, even a little practiced hearing allows you to quickly identify the mood. For the self-test, you can play a triad or a gamut of the determined tonality and compare it to the harmony of the sound with the main melody.

After the tonic and fret are found, you can safely call tonality. So, the tonic "fa" and the "major" mode make up the tonality of F major. To find the signs at the key, it is enough to refer to the table of signs and tonalities.

How to determine the tone of the melody in the musical text? Read the key signs!

If you need to determine the tone of the melody in the musical text - pay attention to the signs at the key. Only two keys can have the same set of characters for the key. This rule is reflected in the quart-quint circle and the table of signs and tonalities created on its basis, which we have already shown you a little bit earlier. If, for example, “F sharp” is drawn next to the key, then there are two options - either E-minor or G major. So the next step is to find the tonic. As a rule, it is the last note in the melody.

Some nuances in determining tonics:

1) the melody can end at another stable sound (stage III or V). In this case, from the two variants of the keys you need to choose the one in which the steady sound is included in the tonic triad;

2) "modulation" is possible - this is the case when the melody began in one, and ended in another key. Here you need to pay attention to the new, "random" alterations signs that appeared in the melody - they will serve as a hint to the key signs of the new tonality. Also noteworthy is the new tonic support. If this is a solfeggio task, the correct answer is to write the modulation path. For example, modulation from D major to B minor.

There are more complex cases in which the question of how to determine the tone of a melody remains open. These are polytonal or atonal melodies, but this topic requires a separate discussion.

Instead of conclusion

Learning to determine the tone of the melody is easy. The main thing is to train the ear (in order to recognize steady sounds and the mood of the mode) and memory (so that you do not look into the table of tonalities every time). Regarding the latter, read the article - How to remember the key characters in the keys? Good luck!