In this course, we will be studying many styles of music, but all of these will have roots in the harmonic and melodic practices of the common practice period. The common practice period is generally considered to include Western art music from the Renaissance through the late Romantic eras, but any music that that grew out of this tradition – including almost all popular music today – can be analyzed using the tools we will study for common practice harmony.
Whereas intervals are the most basic building blocks of all music, scales represent the next step up the complexity ladder. Whenever you stack any number of pitches from top to bottom, you create a scale. A scale is a collection of pitches from which a defined intervallic pattern can be extracted – in short, a series of intervals – and can encompass any tuning system or style of composition.
We will explore some extended scales later in this course, but certain scales are at the core of all common practice harmony, and as a music student, you are likely already familiar with these: major, minor, pentatonic, and chromatic.