"the" and preposition "of" in the expression "the musical scale of C major"

[guilhermehm]

Hello, expert!

About determiner "the" and preposition "of" in the expression "the musical scale of C major".

I don't feel it sounds right "The musical scale of C major",

(1) What intention, sense, has the preposition "of" on it? That's because what I know about "of" is that it connects a word giving the sense of belonging to it, as "The smeel of the child", indicating that the smell belongs to the child. In this case of the tittle, It's like "of" is specifying the scale, what scale is,
(2) Can I say "the musical scale C major", without "of"?
(3) I'd like to know if I can say "the Musical Scale of the C major"?
(4)I'd like to know if I can change the tittle to "About the determiner "the" and the preposition "of"[...]".

Thank you so much!!!! S2.

 

[Rover_KE]

(1) It means 'called' or 'known as'. Other examples are 'I live in the county of Lancashire', 'I was born in the month of May', 'The Romans besieged the city of Carthage'.

(2) Yes.

(3) No.

(4) Yes — in fact, you should change them thus.

 

[jutfrank]

(1) It means 'called' or 'known as'. Other examples are 'I live in the county of Lancashire', 'I was born in the month of May', 'The Romans besieged the city of Carthage'.

(2) Yes.

(3) No.

(4) Yes — in fact, you should change them thus.

I agree with everything except (2). I don't think it's quite right to call C major a scale. It's a note which has a scale, thus the preposition of.

 

[emsr2d2]

C major is a chord, made up of C, E, G and C, and it's a key in which a piece of music can be written. C natural and C sharp are notes.

 

[jutfrank]

C major is a chord ... C natural and C sharp are notes.

Oops, yes, right. Thanks for the correction.

 

[Peedeebee]

C major is a key. It's a chord, or it has a chord (belonging to it). It is a scale, or it's a key which has a scale belonging to it. (C minor is a different key, and a different scale belongs to that. )
So the "of" can mean -belonging to- . And for No. 2: I am a musician- I believe you can call a scale C major, as its name. A musician would know what you meant. If you played the scale to a musician and said, "what's that?" They would say, "scale of C major." or "C Major scale." or " C Major." Depending on how pedantic they wanted to be. (I'm also a pedantic English teacher.)

 

[Peedeebee]

(3) I'd like to know if I can say "the Musical Scale of the C major"?....

Say "The musical scale of C Major no full stop here" (leave out the "the").

 

[emsr2d2]

A musician would know what you meant. If you played the scale to a musician and said, "what's that?" They would say, "scale of C major." or "C Major scale." or " C Major."

If you played them that scale but they couldn't actually see the keys of whatever instrument you were playing, they would only be able to tell you that it was a major scale, unless they had perfect pitch (in which case, they would be able to identify that it had started on C).

 

[Peedeebee]

Yes! Perfect Pitch, an instinct I don't have, alas.

 

[emsr2d2]

If you played the scale to a musician and said, "What's that?", they would say, "Scale of C major no full stop here", or "C Major scale no full stop here" or " C Major no full stop here", depending on how pedantic they wanted to be. (I'm also a pedantic English teacher.)

This pedantic English teacher has made some corrections to your punctuation and capitalisation above.

 

[emsr2d2]

Yes! Perfect pitch; an instinct I don't have, alas.

Sadly, nor do I. My secondary school music teacher did and I was always very jealous.

 

[Rover_KE]

It could be a mixed blessing. You’d always be irked when you heard somebody playing or singing slightly out of tune.

 

[probus]

As an interesting little aside, have you ever wondered how the Youtube channel Playing for Change gets those musicians scattered all over the world to play exactly in tune and on tempo? The answer is Moogaloop, a piece of software that enables them to rectify small differences in pitch and tempo.

 

[emsr2d2]

As an interesting little aside, have you ever wondered how the Youtube channel Playing for Change gets those musicians scattered all over the world to play exactly in tune and on tempo? The answer is Moogaloop, a piece of software that enables them to rectify small differences in pitch and tempo.

A piece of software that my a cappella choir could really have done with for the year or so that we tried to rehearse over Zoom!