Major Key Tone Tendencies

Tense and unstable tones in a scale can evoke powerful emotions in our listeners. In fact, they can be used for a wide range of expressive effects.

In this post, we’ll look at how unstable tones in the major scale create tension and how they can be used for expression. We’ll listen to some musical examples and consider an exercise for using tone tendencies to write new melodies.

The tendencies of major scale tones

The major scale is made up of seven distinct tones (numbered 1-7). Here they are on one octave of the C major scale:

Each of these tones has different tendencies relative to the root tone (the 1). A tendency refers to the way we hear a tone pull toward some other tone. The clearest example of this comes from the 7, often called the “leading tone”.

Can you hear the tension created when we jump from the root note to the 7? The 7 seems to pull up toward the 1. Notice how this tension is resolved when we get there.

The three tones in the home chord of the key (1, 3, and 5) are all stable. This means that they don’t noticeably pull in any direction. And they act as targets for the other tones.

The remaining tones are sometimes called tendency tones. They each have their own primary target, as illustrated here:

The tones 2, 3, and 6 all tend to pull down. The 7, as we’ve seen, tends to pull up (to the root tone above it). Notice that they each target a tone in the home chord.

Instability and expression

Tendency tones are unstable. If we emphasize one in a melody, it creates a feeling of tension because of the pull of the tone.

This instability and tension can be used for expressive effects.

Many songs express longing for something. When we long for something, we feel a strong, unsatisfied pull. The absence of the object of our desire drives a powerful emotional experience.

Think of this as a metaphor for the tension created by an unstable tone. If we dwell on that tension, it will evoke an emotional response in our listeners.

You can experiment with these effects by playing with lyrical placement. Take a melody you like and determine the key it’s in. You can then identify the tendency tones by seeing where they are relative to the root tone.

Try placing more emotive words on the unstable tones in the melody. Pay attention to how it changes the color of those words.

The tendencies of each tone in the major scale

Now that we’ve considered some of the power of tendency tones, let’s take a closer look at how each of the tones functions in the major scale.

We’ll go in order from most stable to least stable. The root tone (1) is the most stable of all, and the reference point for the rest.

The 5

The 5 is the second most stable tone (after the root). It has a strong tendency to reinforce the 1. That is, it helps to establish the 1 as the root of the song.

The 5 has this same effect in major keys, minor keys, and every common mode. In many ways, this is a fundamental relationship.

Let’s hear it in context:

Pay attention to the stability of the 5. It doesn’t really pull us anywhere. The return to the 1 has a natural, gentle sound.

The 3

The 3 is also stable, but it doesn’t simply reinforce the 1. Instead, it establishes the quality of the scale as major.

As we hang on the 3, we don’t feel a strong pull anywhere, but we do experience a more colorful effect than the 5. The return to the 1 is once again a natural landing.

For contrast, listen to the sound of the b3, also called the minor 3rd. This tone indicates we’re in a minor quality scale:

Of course, there’s no minor 3rd in a major scale.

The 6

The 6 is the first tone in this section that feels unstable, pulling us somewhere else. A common resolution is one step down to the 5.

Notice how hanging on the 6 creates a subtle tension. And pay attention to how this tension resolves when we move to the 5.

It’s worth mentioning here that you can also resolve the 6 by going up to the 1 or down to the 3. But the move to the 5 is the closest resolution and functions like a primary target.

Here’s the resolution up to the 1 for contrast:

This still feels like a resolution, but requires more energy than the move down to the 5.

The 2

With the 2, we start entering more clearly tense territory. The 2 creates the feeling we’re on our way somewhere.

It’s common to walk up from 2 to 3, but the move from 2 to 1 sounds even more like a resolution:

Again, pay attention to the tension created as we hang on the 2, and what it feels like when that tension is resolved.

And for comparison, here is how it sounds when the 2 moves to the 3 instead:

The 4

The 2 and 6 resolved to their primary targets by moving a whole step down. This is apparent if you look again at the tones in the key of C major:

In the C major scale, there’s a black key in between 2 and 1, and a black key in between 6 and 5.

There are two points in the scale with no black key in between. These are where the most unstable tones in the scale are: 4 and 7. In both cases, we resolve to the primary target by moving a half step.

The 4 is not only more unstable than the 2, but it also feels more like a new location. That is, you can use the 4 to create tension in a melody, but you can also shift the center of gravity there. The 4 can be like a decision point!

This parallels the way the IV chord that is built on the 4 functions in major key progressions.

Let’s hear the 4 in context, resolving to its primary target:

And here it is resolving to the 5:

The 7

We’ve already discussed the 7, but let’s listen to it again after hearing the other tones:

Can you hear how this is more tense than the 6, 2, or 4? In the context of a full melody, it can create a strong emotional effect.

Here it is resolving to a secondary target, the 5:

Even though we are going down here, it feels like it takes more energy than going up a half-step to the 1.

These tendencies are not rules

We’ve now considered the primary and secondary targets of each of the tendency tones in the major scale. But it’s important to mention that these tendencies are not rules for melody writing.

Just because the 7 creates a pull toward the 1 doesn’t mean we have to go there.

In much of the history of European classical music, tones were often “prepared” and then resolved according to these tendencies. But in 20th and 21st century popular music, these specific resolutions were (and are) often ignored.

The value of learning about tone tendencies is not to learn exactly where melodies should go. Rather, the value is in becoming more aware of how tension is created in melodies, and how you can play with these tensions.

A musical example: “These Dreams”

Now that we’ve considered the tendencies of major key tones in the abstract, it’s time to look at how they work in an actual song.

The chorus from “These Dreams” by Heart provides a relatively clear example of the tension (and emotional expression) that can be created by the 7 and the 2.

Here’s the first half of the chorus:

The word “these” (on the 1) acts as a pickup at the beginning, meaning it prepares the first emphasized tone of the melody. That first emphasized tone is the unstable 7.

You can probably feel the emotional tension created as she sings the word “dreams” on the 7. In the context of the song, these dreams are what she yearns for. And the 7 serves well to express this yearning.

The 7 here does not resolve up to the 1. Instead we drop down to the 5 and then down further to the 1.

Notice that she then hovers on the 1 as she sings “when I close my eyes”. The stability of the 1 grounds the experience of closing your eyes and momentarily feeling the way you want to feel.

But of course this can’t last. She jumps up to the root tone an octave higher and quickly destabilizes by moving to the 2. She sings “second” over this tense 2, underscoring that these seconds are quickly passing her by.

We then settle onto more stable ground, leaping from the 5 to the 1 as she sings “I live another life”. This creates a feeling of qualified repose.

Listen again to the melody and pay close attention to the 7 (on the word “dreams”) and the 2 (on the word “second”). How do they feel to you? Contrast this with how the 1 (on the word “life”) feels at the end of the line.

This is a pretty straightforward illustration of the expressive potential of tendency tones.

Tendencies in relation to chords

This section is a digression into how stability and instability relate to chords. Feel free to skip to the exercise if you’d rather just use what we’ve explored so far.

So far, we’ve ignored the existence of harmony in a song. The tendencies we’ve described have all been relative to the root tone and the scale.

A melody like “These Dreams” is powerful on its own. We can sing it without any chords and still capture a lot of its expressive potential. If we sing it alone, we are hearing the tensions in the melody relative to the root tone.

But of course, most popular music sets the melody against a chord progression. And that chord progression creates another level of interactions between tones.

When chords are playing, every note in the melody functions either as a chord tone or a non-chord tone. Chords tones are part of the background chord, and non-chord tones are not.

Relative to the chord, chord tones are stable and non-chord tones are unstable. If we look at the melody of “These Dreams” in the full harmonic context, we find that the two emphasized tendency tones (7 and 2) are actually chord tones!

The 7 and 2 of the scale are both part of the V chord. But what’s interesting about the V chord is that it has a strong pull back to the I, the home chord. And now we see part of the reason why: the 2 and the 7 both pull us toward the root.

So on one level, the 7 and 2 create tension relative to the root tone and the scale. And on another level, they are part of the tension created here by the V chord.

Most of the tones emphasized in this section are chord tones. This is common in choruses. But one exception is the 5 after “dreams”, which anticipates a strong beat over the IV chord. This creates a moment of instability before falling to the stable root tone, which is also a chord tone over IV.

We’ll have to leave a deeper exploration of chord and non-chord tones for another time. The important point for now is that the stability of a tone depends on more than just its position in the scale (i.e. more than just its tone tendencies).

A tone tendencies songwriting exercise

Hopefully by this point, you have a sense for how tone tendencies work in a scale. It’s time to use this understanding to write some melodies.

In this exercise, we’ll be writing a melody on its own, without a chord progression. You can always add a chord progression later.

• Start by picking a major key and playing (or singing) the scale up and down to ground yourself in the key. Ideally, you’ll pick a comfortable key for you to sing in.
• Once you have the scale under your skin, the next step is to focus on one tendency tone (2, 4, 6, or 7). One way to do this is to use the root tone (the 1) as a repetitive bass note and then sing or play your tendency tone against it.
• Pay attention to the feeling your tone evokes in you. Now sing (or play) it resolving to one of the stable tones (1, 3, or 5).
• As you play these tones over and over again, listen for melodic ideas. You can just try singing some nonsense on the 1, the tendency tone, and the target tone. But you can also sing any other tones that come to mind. Whatever you do, just try to make the tendency tone part of your melody.
• To add another layer, I recommend thinking of a word with some emotional resonance for you. Place this word on the tendency tone and then build some lyrics around it.

Experiment and remain open to where your intuition takes you. If you go off and write a whole melody, that’s great. If you love it, then you can stick to it and start writing a song. But you can also just record your idea, pick another tendency tone, and start again.

Next steps

The point of this exercise is to help you experience and manipulate the tones in your melodies in new ways. But it’s also a pretty artificial approach.

Take what you learn and see if you can use it to revise some melodies from your backlog that seemed boring or ineffective.

Look for points in the melody that should be expressive and try out different tendency tones at those points. Try resolving (and not resolving) these tendency tones in different ways. And see if you can better align your lyrics with the tension created by individual tones.

Remember that you don’t need to think of the tones as specific numbered scale degrees. Just explore those feelings of tension that a melody can create as you improvise ideas.

The range for experimentation is huge! And once you’ve internalized these concepts, you can explore the tone tendencies in minor keys as well.