Music's Greatest Secret

There is one thing that anyone who wants to make music should know. I call it music's greatest secret. Look at music for the song "Some Folks Do" in three different keys below. The only thing that's the same for all three is the time values of the notes. The notes are different for each key. It can be written in many more keys. Each key will have different notes but it's the same song. This seems confusing but learn a few basics and music’s greatest secret. Then it all becomes easy. What you will learn applies to both the melody and harmony of a song but to keep it simple I will only apply it to the most recognizable part of the song, the melody. So what is this great secret, the one thing that every musician needs to know. The secret is that the melody does not depend on what notes you play but on the spaces between the notes. You can start a melody on any note and if you keep the spaces the same you will have the same melody. It will sound higher or lower depending on which note you start on but the melody will be the same.

There are only seven different natural notes a, b, c, d, d, e, f, and g. Once you get to g you start all over again with the note a. They go higher and higher as you go up through each octave but they are the same notes. These natural notes are not all the same distance apart. The smallest distance between notes in music is a half step. The natural notes b to c and e to f are a half step apart. All the other notes are a whole step apart with room for one more note in between. This note is called by two names. It's the sharp of the note below it and the flat of the note above it. As we use the notes, you will learn when to call it a sharp and when to call it a flat. Looking at the keyboard below, you can see that the natural notes are the white keys. The sharp/flat keys are the black keys. Notice that that there is no black key in between b to c and e to f which are a half step apart. All the other notes are a whole apart and have a sharp/flat key in between. It's easy to find your place on a keyboard because of the way the black keys fall into a groups of two and three. You could start with any c but it's best to start on middle c around the middle of the keyboard or piano to match up with the pitch of the video lesson.

The video below shows you how to play the song "Some Folks Do" first in C, then in G and finally in F. The fingering is the same in all three keys. This can be called a five finger song because once your hand is in place for a particular key, each finger plays a note. You just have to move your hand to a different spot on the keyboard to play in a different key. Your thumb lines up with the note that is the name of the key. Use the keyboard above as your guide to find your place. Notice that in the key of F, you have to substitute a black piano key for a white piano key. Learn to play this melody in the three keys on your piano or keyboard. your fingers are numbered from 1 to 5 from the thumb to the pinkie. Notice how G sounds little bit higher than F and both sound much higher than C.

Why do we have the same melody,even though the notes are different. It's because the spaces between the notes are the same. This song uses the first five notes of each key. If we look at them in terms of do, re, me, fa, so, they are all the same. For the key of C the notes you use are c, d, e, f, and g. You have two whole steps c to d and d to e. Then you have a half step e to f followed by a final whole half step, f to g. It' the same for the key of G with the notes g, a ,b, c, and d. You have two whole steps g to a and a to b. Then you have a half step b to c followed by a final whole step, c to d. For the key of F we have f to g as a whole step and g to a as a whole step. Next we need a half step but a to b is a whole step. We fix this by using the note below b, the black key b flat. Now a to b flat is a half step and b flat to c gives us a final whole step. The key of C is all natural notes. The key of G always has an f sharp but it's out of the range of this song. The key of F always has a b flat. We need to use it because it is in the range of this song. If you look at the music above, you see the f sharp for g and the b flat for f are in the key signature at the beginning of the song because they apply to the whole song. Every time you start a melody on a different note, you will be in a different key and you will have to use the appropriate sharps or flats to keep the spaces between the notes the same for that melody. So you see, It's the spaces between the notes that make a melody, not the notes you use.