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One of the objectives of this site is to delve into the music more deeply than is usually done. This requires some discussion of musical form such as scales and rhythm.
The terms used to describe musical intervals and scales can be quite complex and to avoid using obscure terms in the text, a shorthand way of describing intervals is used in the book. This works as follows:
A semitone - that is the space between any two adjacent notes on a piano keyboard, for example B to C, E to F or C to C# is denoted S. A whole tone - the space of two notes on the piano e.g. C to D or B to C# is denoted T. Larger intervals are made up of these two units - for example, the space between B and E is two whole tones and a semitone and so is denoted 2T + S, this is illustrated below:
This is important because intervals make up a tune and the particular sequence of intervals used in the music gives it a particular feel - what we call its melodic structure. They are particularly useful in understanding scales by describing the sequence of notes in the scale - for example the common scale of C Major can be described as follows:
C D E F G A B C
T T S T T T S
and this sequence of notes T T S T T T S is found in all major scales and is what gives them their special sound.
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