# Within The Ruins style/scales?



## iRaiseTheDead (Mar 20, 2012)

I've looked around a little and through some interviews but I don't think anyone has really discussed Within The Ruins's scales.
What scales do you think they write in? I'm not really good at just listening to music and picking up which scale it might be. The only thing I can tell you is if its minor or major.
If I had to guess, I'd guess Harmonic minor or Whole-Half scales?

Thanks for any help


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Mar 21, 2012)

Why doesn't anybody post the songs for the stuff they're looking for?

Within The Ruins - Tractor Pull


Minor and harmonic minor. But the harmonic minor is used how it was originally intended (with the leading tone in the context of a dominant harmony), not just running scales up and down.

The introduction of this song, on the other hand, uses the harmonic minor modally:

Death - Zombie Ritual


Hear the difference?

On the other hand, they use harmonic minor in the modal way at 1:43 here:

Within The Ruins - Infamy


Truthfully, you can have two groups using the same exact scale/chords and sound completely different. Style and harmony are only marginally linked.


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## iRaiseTheDead (Mar 21, 2012)

Sorry :x I was going to post them today man, last night when I posted I was about to pass out. You beat me to it. And thank you!

What exactly did you mean by this?



> Minor and harmonic minor. But the harmonic minor is used how it was originally intended (with the leading tone in the context of a dominant harmony), not just running scales up and down.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Mar 21, 2012)

I have to go to class, so I don't have much time at the moment, but maybe this diagram will explain things:







Harmonic minor is kind of a mix between major and natural minor. Traditionally, harmonic minor was used in order to get a V chord (rather than v) in minor keys.


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## iRaiseTheDead (Mar 21, 2012)

Oh okay I see what you mean. Thank you, sir!


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Mar 22, 2012)

Welcome, dude.

Edit: I'm going to elaborate a little more.

A long time ago, when people were making up all of this harmony stuff, they were very concerned with how you get from one note to the next. They concluded that the smoothest way to do this was to step up and down a scale in small intervals (as opposed to leaping to a note six octaves and a tritone away, or some crazy shit like that). As you know, a scale can either go up or down. By extension, you can approach a note from above or below. I have generated a few aids to show what I mean. The tuning for all examples is E standard.






The first measure is the note that we're approaching. In this case, it's A. For now, we're going to use this as our tonic note. The second measure is a descending A major tetrachord. Sounds like a mouthful, huh? All this means is that we're taking the first four notes of an A major scale and playing them downward. This is how we approach A from above. Assume that the first four notes of the scale (A B C# D) are the lower tetrachord. If we continued with the scale, the last four notes of the scale (E F# G# A) would therefore be the upper tetrachord. Bear with me. In the third measure, we're approaching A from four notes below (Using the upper tetrachord! Yaaaay!). This is really the true nature of scales: they are used to approach a central note from either above or below, and thinking of scales emanating from one direction is a newer thing.

Something magical happens in the fourth measure: we have both the upper tetrachord and the lower tetrachord approaching the tonic at the same time. When this happens, we get counterpoint - two simultaneous melodies - as well as harmony. Notice that you can hear both the ascending line as well as the descending line. It's nice, no? The practice of putting multiple melodies on top of each other eventually resulted in the creation of the chords that we're familiar with today. This first example is in the mode of A major, but we also have these minor keys to deal with, so let's have a look at those.






This is the exact same thing, using the scale of A natural minor. Once again, our first measure is the tonic that we're trying to approach: A. The second measure is the lower tetrachord of A minor, descending. The third measure is the upper tetrachord of A minor, ascending. Then, the fourth measure is what we get when we put them together. Everything works well, it sounds minor, but when musicians played these two figures together, they felt that there wasn't enough pull from G to A. This brings us to our next example...






A harmonic minor! The second measure is the same as in the natural minor: a lower minor tetrachord. The third measure is almost the same, but one thing has changed: instead of having G, we now have G#. The G# is called a leading tone, because it wants to lead into A. If you just play that measure, you'll quickly hear every death metal song ever, or "that Middle Eastern thing". This is because of the 'augmented second' between F and G#; notice that you have to stretch your hand just a little bit to go from fret 8 to 11. This wide interval sticks out like a sore thumb, so the originators of this scale tried not to use it like that. We'll discuss this a little more in a little bit. Finally, at the fourth measure, we have our counterpoint. Notice that when we play the last two in that sequence, the resolution is strong. Compare this measure with the fourth measure from the natural minor. The harmonic minor should sound like it has more pull. We still need to take care of that pesky augmented second, though.






This is the melodic minor scale. Once again, we have our tonic: A. Once again, the second measure is the lower tetrachord. Then, the third measure is a little different. It's like the harmonic minor example, because there is a G#, but the augmented second gap has been closed by raising F to F#. Actually, you'll notice that it is the same as the upper tetrachord of A major, the first scale we looked at. Then, when we put the two tetrachords together in measure 4, just listen to that. That is so goddamn smooth: you have the leading tone that we get in harmonic minor without the awkward augmented second gap. So, the dudes that invented this were thinking along these lines: "We're going up to the tonic, but it doesn't sound cool enough. We could slip a leading tone in there, but then it will sound like every death metal song that will be written 400 years from now, or like those brown people we don't like. Well, we can't have that, but we still want the leading tone, so let's raise the other note, too."

Because of this, you'll hear about "ascending melodic minor". That's basically what that means. "Descending melodic minor" is just the natural minor: when you're not approaching the tonic, you don't need a leading tone. So, I've explained the evolution of minor to melodic minor to you, but it seems kind of unfair that harmonic minor is pushed to the side. So, with all of that said, this is how you're supposed to work with harmonic minor (if you follow the rules ).






The first measure is a descending scale with four notes. Hey, that's one of those tetrachord thingamabobs (Why doesn't my spell check underline that?). The second measure is a bunch of A's and a G#. I'll give you a hint: A is our tonic, and that G# is an upward approach from below to the A. The third measure is some big leapy crap. Those are bass notes. The fourth measure is what you get when you put all of this together: a chord progression. If you take all of the pitches in that chord progression, you get A C D E F G#. A harmonic minor is A B C D E F G#, so that's basically the scalar material for this chord progression. We said before that the problem with harmonic minor is the augmented second that results when you use the upper tetrachord to get to the tonic, going from F to G#. We've managed to bypass that issue here somehow. If you look at the first measure, the melody is a descending F E D C. The F isn't going to G#, so there's no augmented second. In the second measure, that melody is just the tonic and the leading tone, so we're not going from G# down to F. Problem solved, harmonic minor gets to walk out in public again. Try going back to the videos I posted and see if you can tell the difference between when the harmonic minor is used the "proper" way, and when it's used modally, in the way where you hear the augmented second.

I have one last thing that I want to show you, a modification to the last example.






This is the same progression, except I've changed the C to C# at the end. This makes the last chord A instead of Am. When you have a major tonic chord at the end of a minor phrase, it's called a picardy third. You'll notice that it has a more hopeful character than keeping the entire phrase minor. I demonstrate this because I want you to know that there are ways to think of music beyond scales. In this progression the distinguishing feature is this major chord at the end, because it's outside of the minor harmony that we're expecting. As you learn more theory, you learn that chords and chord progressions are where it's at, and scales are kinda muh.


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## Tyler (Mar 22, 2012)

So would this still come into play as 4 part style writing where you never want to double the leading tone, stay away from augmented and diminished, while also keeping the common tone? I know from writing orchestra pieces thats generally how my approach is, but feel as if with styles like this that can change.


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## Mr. Big Noodles (Mar 22, 2012)

The last two chord progressions? Yeah, absolutely. Although three part writing is a completely different beast from four part writing... but I think we'll scare off the OP we go much further. 

Voice leading is an essential skill. It doesn't matter if you have one voice or four or twelve (in which case your music probably sounds waaaay convoluted), there are some things that work, and following a few rules will assure that your music at least sounds safe. I wasn't trying to talk about voice leading, but rather discuss two different contexts of the harmonic minor scale. But, because voice leading is the entire reason that scale exists, some rudimentary talk of voice leading is unavoidable. To give you a bit of my perspective, the first four figures I put up are more of a Renaissance counterpoint sort of thing (though you can find scales in contrary motion just about anywhere), and the last two are like Classical era chord progressions. In both, I show concern for the handling of the leading tone, as it has a delicate function; doubling it either results in parallel octaves or an unsatisfactory resolution, and going anywhere but the tonic from the leading tone tends to kill the phrase (although not necessarily).


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## iRaiseTheDead (Mar 22, 2012)

Oh, I definitely understand the minor and harmonic scales


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## guitarguy44 (Mar 28, 2012)

Mind=blown 
I need lessons xD


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## brootalboo (Apr 2, 2012)

Just to give you a heads up, it seems like the guitarist pretty much exclusively writes in G harmonic minor. I've tried learning a couple of their songs and they all seem to be in that key. They tune down real low and do the breakdowns go...

E-------------
B-------------
G-------------
D-------------
A---4--4--4--
D---5--5--5--

Which is kind of unusual for the genre. Not the right tuning, but you get the idea. Dunno if that helps or not.


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## iRaiseTheDead (May 16, 2012)

brootalboo said:


> Just to give you a heads up, it seems like the guitarist pretty much exclusively writes in G harmonic minor. I've tried learning a couple of their songs and they all seem to be in that key. They tune down real low and do the breakdowns go...
> 
> E-------------
> B-------------
> ...



That might simply be because he tunes to drop G#, 96% of their breakdowns are played as if they were in drop C.. why? Who knows!


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## Razzy (May 16, 2012)

iRaiseTheDead said:


> That might simply be because he tunes to drop G#, 96% of their breakdowns are played as if they were in drop C.. why? Who knows!



Because he's figured out you don't always just have to ride the open note, lol. Within the Ruins is one of my favorite bands.


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## niffnoff (May 19, 2012)

iRaiseTheDead said:


> That might simply be because he tunes to drop G#, 96% of their breakdowns are played as if they were in drop C.. why? Who knows!



One does not simply write open note breakdowns now


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