# The Synthetic Scale Thread



## Mr. Big Noodles

I just got off the piano, and had the idea for this thread. Here's the concept: if you have a synthetic scale that you'd like to share, then post it. Explain, if you can, what was going through your mind when you made it up. Does the scale harmonize? Is it the same ascending as it is descending? Is there a tonal centre? Perhaps it just sounds cool. Anyway, let the games begin!



C D# E F# G G# A# B
This is what I was working on right before I made this thread. The idea is to take the I and iii chords of a major scale and add a few notes so that instead of having just a C major and an E minor, we get C major, C minor, C diminished, E major, E minor, and E diminished. There's a bunch of goody goody chords in there, but I'm too lazy to find and name them all at the moment. I haven't had the chance to experiment with this scale too much, so I can't say much on how it resolves and whatnot.



C D D# E F F# A A#
Another octatonic scale. I drew inspiration for this one whilst watching Purple Rain. 
There's a little part in "Computer Blue" that has this chromatic thing going on. I picked up my guitar, played three chromatically consecutive notes on the E string, moved up to the same fret on the A string, did the same, and then onto the D string, same fret, another three chromatic notes to complete the octave. After playing around with this for a while, I decided that the sixth mode had the strongest tonic gravity. The original scale would have been this:

C C# D F F# G A# B

I asked a couple of guys at school what they thought of it, and they agreed that the sixth mode sounded the most resolved, so that became the final product.

Edit: Now that I revisit it, what I had originally sounds more resolute. Perhaps I was playing something that emphasized that perfect fifth that day. Any thoughts?


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## S-O

You sir, need to purchase the Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns by Nicolas Slonimsky. Great book.

The first half or so is dedicated to dividing the octave(s) into parts. The first one is dividing one octave in two, so C F# C, and then using interpolation, and a bunch of other xpolations (infra, ultra, etc...; and combinations: inter-infra, etc...) SO interpolation of one note is C C# F# G C, adding one note above. This method goes on up to interplation of 5 or 6 (don't have it right here to see). Then there are symmetric scales, ading one note aboce C and one note below the next octave of C; C C# F# B C

These go onto diving the octave by 3 and 4, then diving 2 ocvates by six, 3 by 8, and so on. I forget how high the octaves go when it stops in the book.

It also does this for pentatonic and Heptatonic scales (Even though some heptatonics are created in the first half). Then it gos over bi tonal scales and arps/chords. Then it shows chords, some created by using all 12 tones. The pyramid contains all twelve intervals starting with an octav and ending at a minor 2nd. The grandmother chord contains all 12 tones and 11 symmetrically invertible intervals.


The book is insane. Best music Book I ever bought. I even have two.


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## Mr. Big Noodles

Thanks, I'll look into it. I find that scales sound best if you have something to work with that doesn't quite sound the way you want it, and you make your own modifications. I've mentioned this before, a good example is the minor pentatonic scale.

C D# F G A#

I thought this was too minor, so I raised the second tone a half step to get a major tonic chord.

C D× (or E, it's all enharmonic) F G A#

It is rather different, and I probably couldn't have built it from the ground up.


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## TonalArchitect

Well, since seeing this thread, I started messing around with this idea. I just came up with this: E F# G A# C D
It's like the C overtone scale but without the A.


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## Luan

Blues scale, but considering this:
You will never play the P5 ascending, you will only play it descending and then you are going to play next the b5.
It is a amazing raga I love.


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## TonalArchitect

So I had this idea after making my post. It rekindled the memory of the Allan Holdsworth's "10 Most Useful Scales" video, wherein he mentioned that some scales would take two or three octaves to resolve. To that end, I decided to craft my own, although it has doubtless been done before. 

It's a symmetrical scale made entirely of a Whole-whole-half intervallic combination. So starting with E (we go root-whole-half whole-whole-half) it would be 

E F# G 
A B C 
D E F
G A B 
C# D# E 
F# G# A
B C# D 
E F# G

Sounds pretty cool, I guess. 
Descending (from G) it's

G F E
D C B
A G F#
E D C#
B A G#
F# E D#
C# B A#
G# F# F
D# C# C
A# G# G

I may have made a mistake, though. But oh well!


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## Mr. Big Noodles

Cool. In the first octave, you have Emi, F#dim, G, Ami, Bdim, C, and Dmi.
The second has Emi, Faug, Gaug, A, B, C#mi, and D#dim.
The third is E, Fmi, G#dim, , Baug, C#dim, and D.

If you cross over octaves with inversions (which, in this case, really aren't inversions), you can get some pretty funky chords, like Bmi, Bdim, and B just between the first two. I'd love to hear some studies made out of this.


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## TonalArchitect

SchecterWhore said:


> I'd love to hear some studies made out of this.



It might kill people. 

Nah, after serialism's innovation, music reached its pinnacle of nastiness. If anyone could make people die with their music, Schoenberg could.


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## Mr. Big Noodles

My stepdad has a friend who played guitar in a production of Alban Berg's Wozzeck. It's comical that anybody could make music so depressing, and then decide to put a story on top of it that is even more depressing. It wouldn't be so bad if it were an opera about a destitute guy that kills his cheating wife and drowns himself, leaving his child an orphan, if he _just resolved that last phrase._ I'm not a big fan of tonality, but I'm no atonal purist, either. I felt like such shit after Wozzeck.


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## TonalArchitect

SchecterWhore said:


> My stepdad has a friend who played guitar in a production of Alban Berg's Wozzeck.



That's awesome-tastic dude! 



SchecterWhore said:


> I felt like such shit after Wozzeck.


Not having heard the piece (yeah, yeah, I know, but there's so much freakin' music), I would have to say that it's brilliant. It helps the truly awful plot to be better conveyed to the listener.



SchecterWhore said:


> I'm not a big fan of tonality, but I'm no atonal purist, either.



Neither one nor the other guarantees goodness. So both can be done poorly or well (or, my liking of the music isn't dependent on tonality or atonality).


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## Mr. Big Noodles

Tonality is supposed to sound nice, so naturally, it does. However, I like little non-harmonic passages when I can get them. Le Sacre du Printemps is a tour de force, all that rhythm and and dissonance and polytonality going on, but it's so hard to make an entire piece like that (think of what it must have been like for Stravinsky's poor old neighbors). With atonality, it's hit or miss, but tonal music is moreorless consistent, and in able hands, beats the best that most atonal artists have produced.

That our ears are conditioned to harmony and the theoretical motives of atonality's innovators probably decreases the likelihood that there will be as much human aspect in atonality as in the densely overpopulated realm of harmony. I hate a lot of atonal music, but I also hate a lot of tonal music. It's just that there is more tonal music on record. If the ratio of great musicians to crap is 1:10000, then you might have a couple thousand good musicians in tonality, but how many atonal composers are there?


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## TonalArchitect

Aye. Sometimes atonality reminds me of modern art. I mean, express yourself any way you want, but I reserve the right to laugh if your masterpiece is a bucket of paint thrown at a wall............or the severed head of a cow left to rot under glass.

That being said. Atonality can be awesome if done well. Just like modern art. I like Salvadore Dali's melting clocks. It's strange, I suppose, but at the very least it's painted well. 

Compare this. On 20/20 or some other show like that they had a segment on modern art, and they gave a kindergartener's fingerpainting-- a pretty cool-looking glob or paint, no prints, just swirls-- to an expert art appraiser. She thought it was done by a master. When told it was a three-year-old, she said, "Must be a very talented three-year-old." 

Same thing with atonality. There has to be a difference between a skilled and inspired composer using clusters and a three-year-old hitting adjacent piano keys.


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## Mr. Big Noodles

I was watching Public Arts Showcase and came in on a mime ballet. No music, just a bunch of masked people in white, wiggling their arms in front of them, running around. It reminded me of Stravinsky. Turned out I was right. I would never have guessed it was Petrushka, but that is true art, when you can take music, turn it into visual performance, and retain the composer's idiosyncracies. It's easy to hear Beethoven or Bartok, or Deep Purple, but that raises the question: is music just frequency?


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## TonalArchitect

Hmm... I've never seen the ballet, but was the dancing similar, or evocative of the choreography? Was it the original choreography? Maybe the piece has certain sudden rhythms of which dancing moving to those rhythms could remind you? I don't know.


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## Mr. Big Noodles

I've never seen another Stravinsky ballet, and I had only heard Petrushka once, to listen for a chord that I had read about on Wikipedia. It's not nearly as rhythmically interesting as The Rite of Spring or the Firebird suite. The mime ballet was just weird. I don't know if it was original choreography. I'll look around for a picture of what I saw.


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## TonalArchitect

Weird.... I don't know I wouldn't be surprised if music has some non-auditory shenanigans; truth really is often stranger than fiction.


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## Mr. Big Noodles

Can't find it. There were a bunch of guys wearing pointy hats, and a bunch of women in puffy dresses, all pure white. The women were chasing one guy around, and then about thirty more looking just like him flooded the stage. It was all very confusing,and they all held their arms at full length in front of them, pedaling their hands... More scales?


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## TonalArchitect

Indeed. Well, I thought I'd be all clever and combine the goodness of the harmonic minor thread with this one and create a scale based on my previous idea, but to no avail! It exists already. 

I wanted to create a maximum exotic scale by taking a root-half-major third-half approach, but it yields the augmented scale one major sixth higher. 

So my scale in E: E-F-G#-A-C-C#-(E)

C# augmented scale: C# E F G# A C

grrr. Wait, I've an idea. . . .


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## All_¥our_Bass

C Phyrgian with #4 and maj7
C Db Eb F# G Ab B

Nine tone augmented
C C# D E F F# G# A Bb

Some wierd eastern sounding thing
C Db D# E G Ab B

Wierd 8 tone
C D Eb F F# G# A Bb C

Locrian dim7 add maj7
C Db Eb F Gb G# A B C


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## TonalArchitect

Well, in trying to combine the goodness of this thread and the harmonic minor thread, I came up with this, which I deem the "Maximum Exotic Scale" (I'd say "Arabic" or something, but I think I'd offend someone, which I'd rather not do.)

So here's my thought process: I took the way I approached my other contribution and make a symmetrical pattern that would take a couple octaves to resolve. 

My pettern is Root-half-minor third-half-whole. So basically the first five notes of phrygian dominant. Note that the note of the whole step at the end is the root of the next segment.

In E:
E-F-G#-A
B-C-D#-E
F#-G-A#-B
C#-D-F-F#
G#-A-C-C#
D#-E-G-G#
A#-B-D-D#
F-F#-A-A#
C-C#-E-F
G-G#-B-C
C-C#-E-F
G-G#-B-C
D-D#-F#-G
A-A#-C#-D
E-F-G#-A

Whew! So, now if you try to play this "more of a giant-huge-run-than-a-scale-"scale on a 24-fret six-string, you will be able to make the last E but not the rest of the run. You could play the notes in that order, but skip down an octave once.

I don't know. I think it's cool. Besides it uses all twelve notes, doesn't sound like chromaticism, but doesn't sound quite normal either. For no real conceivable reason, you could notice that every four notes, the segment is one fifth higher.


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## Mr. Big Noodles

That's a monster of a scale. I appreciate scales and harmonies that don't fit within an octave, but I still haven't gotten to the point that I can work with that kind of stuff. Béla Bartók figured out that a phrygian mode and its parallel lydian mode interlock to form a full chromatic scale. Makes sense, their keys are a half step apart. Anyway, he made some really neat sounding stuff with that idea, not ugly chromaticisms.


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## TonalArchitect

SchecterWhore said:


> That's a monster of a scale. I appreciate scales and harmonies that don't fit within an octave, but I still haven't gotten to the point that I can work with that kind of stuff. Béla Bartók figured out that a phrygian mode and its parallel lydian mode interlock to form a full chromatic scale. Makes sense, their keys are a half step apart. Anyway, he made some really neat sounding stuff with that idea, not ugly chromaticisms.



I can't work with them either. To be honest, I would argue for tens of minutes with someone that it's more of a strict run than a scale, because I love to jumble the notes of a scale around. For example, what if you don't go right up and down this beast of a scale?

So yeah. I wont lie. I have no idea what I'm doing. I just remembered that some scales took more than one octave and applied this symmetrical pattern thingy and out popped these mutant things.


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## Mr. Big Noodles

Any arrangement of notes can be considered a scale, really. There are four tone scales out there. What makes them different from an arpeggiated western chord? I will agree with you, though, that this example is probably better suited as a run through different keys, as the harmony to back up the melody would probably support. Compressing everything into octave-sized packages can get quite boring, though.


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## All_¥our_Bass

I've messed with scales that resolve at the 15th.


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## Mr. Big Noodles

Yeah, but... you're a badass. I've seen your Squier.

I haven't contributed in a while, so here's a heptatonic scale I made up on the fly:

C-D#-E-F#-G-A#-B


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## TonalArchitect

SchecterWhore said:


> Any arrangement of notes can be considered a scale, really. There are four tone scales out there. What makes them different from an arpeggiated western chord? I will agree with you, though, that this example is probably better suited as a run through different keys, as the harmony to back up the melody would probably support. Compressing everything into octave-sized packages can get quite boring, though.



Indeed, I'm just ranting about how our system of music theory can fall apart if you poke it enough, but I wouldn't expect it to be able to describe everything. And I would love to get beyond the one octave one scale packages, but how would I use this scale as not this particular run and have it retain its qualities? 

Here's one I got by mutilating the harmonic major scale:

(in F!)

F-Gb-G-A-Bb-C-Cb-Db-Eb



SchecterWhore said:


> Yeah, but... you're a badass. I've seen your Squier.



Yea, scales that resolve on the 15th aren't half as scary as your guitar! 
Where do you get strings? Juststrings.com?

Also, give us these scales


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## All_¥our_Bass

TonalArchitect said:


> Yea, scales that resolve on the 15th aren't half as scary as your guitar!
> Where do you get strings? Juststrings.com?


 
Actually just my local guitar center




TonalArchitect said:


> Also, give us these scales


 
It was more theoretical than anything when I did stuff with them. More for unnusual chords (bitonality, wierd extensions) than linear stuff. I wrote some stuff down though, so I'll dig up some of it anyway.


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## Mr. Big Noodles

Harmonizing scales beat melodic scales in complexity, for the most part. Would love to hear a fugue done with a scale that doesn't resolve in an octave.


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## All_¥our_Bass

Double whole tone
C D E F# G# A# C# D# F G A B C

Wierd diminished-ish thing
C Db D# E F# G B

^ That one has a very interesting tonic chord, diminished major7

C major/C#minor hybrid
C D E F G A B C# D# E F# G# A B C

Gimme some more time. I'll dig some more stuff up and post it later. Try building some 8 or 9 note arps with those, very unusual.

Wierd minorish thing that resolves (and repeats at) a major third
C D Eb F G Ab Bb B C# D# E

Lydian that resolves/repeats at the major ninth
C D E F# G A B C# D


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## Mr. Big Noodles

That last one is cool. The double whole tone one doesn't sound very fluid, though.


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## Metal Ken

Stickied this shit, cause this is what we need in here.


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## Mr. Big Noodles

Suh-weet!

Octatonic scale with an augmented and flat 5 tonic chord.

C-D-E-F-F#-G#-A-B

Has both an F major and an F# diminished. Wants to pull into a G, but we have a G#, and it too has a diminished triad, making an interesting cadence into the A minor chord. D can also be major or minor. Check it:
I+/Iº-ii/II-III-IV-vº-viº-vii-viiiº


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## All_¥our_Bass

SchecterWhore said:


> That last one is cool. The double whole tone one doesn't sound very fluid, though.



It's rules to jump around in if your playing some Holdsworth-esque stuff though.  (Double Whole Tone, that is.)


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## S-O

C C# F# G C, nothing to fancy, but has a cool sound when used right :\ pretty much stolen from the Thesaurus o' SAMP.


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## Mr. Big Noodles

S-O, that sounds nifty. I checked out that book, by the way. I'll buy it after I get a bit of cash.


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## S-O

Good to hear!  I love it!


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## All_¥our_Bass

S-O said:


> Thesaurus of DOOM.


 
I've been dying to buy that.


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## Vairocarnal

SchecterWhore said:


> I just got off the piano, and had the idea for this thread. Here's the concept: if you have a synthetic scale that you'd like to share, then post it. Explain, if you can, what was going through your mind when you made it up. Does the scale harmonize? Is it the same ascending as it is descending? Is there a tonal centre? Perhaps it just sounds cool. Anyway, let the games begin!
> 
> 
> 
> C D# E F# G G# A# B
> This is what I was working on right before I made this thread. The idea is to take the I and iii chords of a major scale and add a few notes so that instead of having just a C major and an E minor, we get C major, C minor, C diminished, E major, E minor, and E diminished. There's a bunch of goody goody chords in there, but I'm too lazy to find and name them all at the moment. I haven't had the chance to experiment with this scale too much, so I can't say much on how it resolves and whatnot.
> 
> 
> 
> C D D# E F F# A A#
> Another octatonic scale. I drew inspiration for this one whilst watching Purple Rain.
> There's a little part in "Computer Blue" that has this chromatic thing going on. I picked up my guitar, played three chromatically consecutive notes on the E string, moved up to the same fret on the A string, did the same, and then onto the D string, same fret, another three chromatic notes to complete the octave. After playing around with this for a while, I decided that the sixth mode had the strongest tonic gravity. The original scale would have been this:
> 
> C C# D F F# G A# B
> 
> I asked a couple of guys at school what they thought of it, and they agreed that the sixth mode sounded the most resolved, so that became the final product.
> 
> Edit: Now that I revisit it, what I had originally sounds more resolute. Perhaps I was playing something that emphasized that perfect fifth that day. Any thoughts?



I'm sorry, but I have to ask: How messy is it getting a piano off?


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## Mr. Big Noodles

They have surprisingly good aim, actually. I guess you would, too, if you had a soundboard to steady you.

Made this one in psychology whilst ripping off Scriabin:
C-Db-Eb-Gb-A


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## Mr. Big Noodles

Woo, I found a cool one that's actually musical. It's basically a major scale with a lowered sixth and seventh, or, in C:
C D E F G Ab Bb

The harmonies are:
I iiº iiiº iv v VI+ VII

Now, many of those chords don't work out so well in a major progression, so I'm going to say that one could borrow the iiº, IVsus4, and VII from this scale with pleasing effect.


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## rectifryer

Seems like the human mind only cars about the last few notes, this makes it possible to shift scales and still sound good if not better when done properly.


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## Holy Katana

SchecterWhore said:


> Woo, I found a cool one that's actually musical. It's basically a major scale with a lowered sixth and seventh, or, in C:
> C D E F G Ab Bb
> 
> The harmonies are:
> I iiº iiiº iv v VI+ VII
> 
> Now, many of those chords don't work out so well in a major progression, so I'm going to say that one could borrow the iiº, IVsus4, and VII from this scale with pleasing effect.



That's Mixolydian b6, the fifth mode of melodic minor. One of my favorite scales to use. One really cool thing you can do with it is to play an ascending dominant 7th arpeggio, and descend with a dominant 7th #5 arpeggio. Or the other way around, if you'd like.


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## ixlramp

I removed my post


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## BlackMetalVenom

Hmmm...Can't believe no one's put this hear yet.

Basically a Pentatonic Major with an added 7th or a Major Scale with an omitted 4th.

The intervals are:
1,2,3,5,6,7

I've dubbed it the "Celtic" Scale. Reason for this is that I've noticed these intervals used in a lot of old traditional Celtic tunes for violin. It's a beautiful scale for sure.

Hope you guys enjoy it.* 
*


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## bostjan

There are a finite number of scales in standard tuning... something like 43 families from which modal theory can generate any heptatonic or pentatonic scale. (There are several theoretical families that are entirely useless, like the ones generated by all half steps and a huge make-up step).

Most exotic scales you see in guitar grimoires and scale books are actually gross approximations to real scales used in various parts of the world.

Anyway, my all-time favorites:

Iwato
1 b2 4 b5 b7
(i.e. in C = C Db F Gb Bb C)

Hungarian Minor
1 2 b3 #4 5 b6 7
(i.e. in C = C D Eb F# G Ab B)

Byzantine a.k.a. Double Harmonic a.k.a. Overtone (which is cofamiliar with the Hungarian Minor listed above)

Also, any octatonic scales that are well-known heptatonics with added sevenths, i.e.
1 2 3 4 5 6 b7 7 or
1 2 b3 4 5 b6 b7 7 or
1 b2 b3 4 b5 b6 b7 7

I like the Byzantine scale mentioned above with this concept added to make a sort of Spanish-Gibraltarish sound:
1 b2 3 4 5 b6 b7 7
especially on classical guitar.

Also, the WH and HW diminished scales:
1 2 b3 4 b5 b6 bb7 7 (WH) and
1 b2 b3 b4 b5 bb6 bb7 7 (HW)
are great for building tension, particularly over a V7 chord.
1 b2 3 4 5 b6 7
(i.e. in C = C Db E F G Ab B)


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## mortality

E - F - G - Ab - B - C - D - D# - E Basically took your standard phrygian scale and built up to the flat 6th in a Phrygian Dominant hexachord from the third.

1-b2-b3-b4-5-6-b7-7


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## mortality

sorry it was supposed to read b6


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## Kroaton

C - D - Eb - F - F# - G - A - Bb - Blues Octatonic scale.

C - D - Eb - F# - G - A - Bb - Romanian Minor.

Let's keep this baby alive.


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## IamOthello

One of my favorite things to do while in a natural minor scale is start a lead that suspends from fourth to a major third from the root, like so.

say the progression is like..

C G Eb Bb
Eb Ab C G
Bb F D C
C G E C

take a lead and rest it on F, then lower it a halfstep and making a major triad out of the root chord, which is normally minor in this case.

So it's effectively, C D Eb E F G Ab Bb. :]


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## Wolf ov Fire

One of my favorites is essentially an inverted major scale. NOT a mode, but literally playing the note structure of the major scale backwards, yet ascending in pitch.

Tl;dr: C C# D# E F# G# A# C

This can be shown as a series of half steps: 1-2-2-1-2-2-2 from the root


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## Mr. Big Noodles

That's technically the seventh mode of C# melodic minor, but the way you're thinking of it is pretty cool.


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## Pooluke41

While watching my Malcom in the middle marathon I came up with an idea.

You assign each note a number, I do it; 1, 2, 3....
Because 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 (As I think it is with 12 tone rows?) Is just illogical too me, 

1 = C
2 = C#
3 = D
4 = D#
5 = E
6 = F
7 = F#
8 = G
9 = G#
10 = A
11 = A#
12 = B

Then you choose numbers at random however you want. I've counted the amount of CD's inbetween gaps in my DVD rack when I first tried this. 

So lets say we get;

3 6 8 9 2 5 4 1 7 12 10 11

Then we group it, I've grouped it like this...

So now it's in two groups.(I group every two)

3 8 2 4 7 10 And 6 9 5 1 12 11

I put it into order.

2 3 4 7 8 10 and 1 5 6 9 11 12

These are

1 = C#, D, D#, F#, G, A
2 = C , E, F , G#,A#, B

Ta-Da! Two new scales.

That pattern was preeeettttyyyy shit but I want to try this with the fibbonaci sequence..... 

Please excuse me if you cannot understand this, but I didn't sleep last night.. While watching Malcom in the middle...


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## Pooluke41

Whilst messing around with my pattern thing, I found these two scales.

C# D E G A B (Locrian with no 4th I think)

C D# F F# G# A# (Locrian with no 2nd I think)


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## Mr. Big Noodles

If you wanted to label the first collection as a scale, C# locrian would suffice; the absence of one tone in a diatonic collection doesn't necessarily make it a new entity. This reminds me of the scales section of John Braheny's "The Craft and Business of Songwriting"; he lists a few scales as "Major 7-tone", "Major 6-tone", "Minor 7-tone" and "Minor 6-tone", and the six-tone variants are only missing the seventh. Riiiight.

The second one is B# locrian. Or C locrian, if you prefer. Either way, they're both missing the second (D or Cx).

I will point out that you're using a serial method for producing these collections, and you don't necessarily need to call the resulting pitch material a scale. There is nothing wrong with identifying similarities between your synthetic pitch material and preexisting pitch material, however, and I would even encourage that. It all depends on the way that you utilize your materials, though. The procedure described in your previous post, I imagine, would lend itself well to a composition wherein two pitch collections, which complement to form a full chromatic collection, are juxtaposed. Something to the same effect is done in the first song here:

John Harbison - Mirabai Songs - I. Why Mira Can't Go Back to Her House


The chromatic scale is stratified into the white notes on the piano (A B C D E F G) and the black notes (F# G# A# C# D#), and Harbison works with that 7+5 arrangement. Overall, the piece uses the chromatic scale, but you really can't describe it that simply - it's how the chromatic collection is divided that gives the piece its character.


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## Aspiringmaestro

(Guitar Book) Nicolas Slonimsky - Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns A scribd link to the book referenced at the beginning of this thread.


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## Jaryth

Any Scriabin fans on this board?


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## Mr. Big Noodles

He's of mild interest to me.


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## ncfiala

Hey guys, new here. I posted in the beginner section so if you've got any advice I'd appreciate it. Anyway, I made up this pentatonic scale I call the fibonacci scale (sorry, I'm a mathematician). I think in terms of intervals so here is the interval structure:

half step, half step, whole step, whole and a half step, 2 wholes and a half step.

Here is a manageable fingering of the scale in the key of F#:



Code:


e---------------------------------------14-15-16
b---------------------------------11-14
G------------------------11-12-13
D-------------------8-11
A-----------9-10-11
E-------6-9
B-7-8-9

 
I hate to base the idea on the fibonacci sequence and continue to perpetuate the idea that there is something really important or mystical about it (there isn't), but I wanted to base it on something mathematical that most people have probably heard of. Laymen are always fascinated (mathematicians not so much) by all of the identities that the terms of the fibonacci sequence satisfy. What they fail to recognize is that the fibonacci sequence is recursive and that any recursive sequence will satisfy similar identites.


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## Mr. Big Noodles

An interesting approach. So you know, music analysts refer to a pattern of smaller intervals developing into larger intervals as "intervallic expansion" (a self-explanatory term), and the inverse as "intervallic contraction". A similar pattern to yours is found in nature as the harmonic series. As a mathematician, you may be familiar with the harmonic series already. You can see that it exhibits intervallic contraction as the series progresses:







Some composers have collapsed the first fourteen partials of the harmonic series into a single octave to theoretically make music that reflects the nature of a single note's overtones. When used in this fashion, some musicologists call it the "acoustic scale", referring to its origins in acoustic physics. An acoustic scale on A (to be consistent with the above image) is A B C# D# E F# G, whose scale degrees are 1 2 3 #4 5 6 b7.

Others have interpreted the same scale in a combinatorial way: they see it as a hybrid between the lydian mode (A B C# D# E F# G#, 1 2 3 #4 5 6 7) and the mixolydian mode (A B C# D E F# G, 1 2 3 4 5 6 b7). When conceived in this way, it has many names, such as lydian-mixolydian (duh), or lydian dominant ('dominant' refers to the tonic seventh chord being a dominant seventh quality, as in 1 3 5 b7). Less inventive ones include "lydian b7" and "mixolydian #4".

If you're into the link between music and mathematics, I recommend that you look into the works of Béla Bartók. He made frequent and likely conscious use of fibonacci sequences, the golden mean, intervallic expansion and contraction, references to the harmonic series (he's one of the exponents of the acoustic scale), and, perhaps most importantly, symmetry. I can show you how he uses some of this stuff, if you want.


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## ncfiala

Here's one I'm calling the pentatonic strictly unimodal palindromic scale. The interval structure is:

half step, whole and a helf step, two whole steps, whole and a half step, half step.

Here's a 2nps fingering in F#:



Code:


e---------------------------6-10
b-----------------------7-8
G------------------7-10
D--------------5-8
A----------8-9
E-----6-10
B-7-8

 
Note that I'm not using the term unimodal to refer to the scale having only one mode (it of course has five) but in the sense of sequences. A finite sequence of real numbers is strictly unmodal if it increases and then decreases. There is of course one other way to do this with a pentatonic scale but it would have a three whole step jump in the middle.


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## ncfiala

Or how about some "diminished" type scales. I'm calling this one the 1/2+3/2 diminished scale. Here's a fingering starting on B:



Code:


e--------------------------------7-8
b----------------------------8-9
G------------------------8-9
D-------------------9-10
A-------------10-11
E-------11-12
B-12-13


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## ncfiala

I'm calling this one the 1/2+5/2 diminished scale. Here's a fingering starting on E:



Code:


e----------------------------12-13
b----------------------11-12
G-----------------9-10
D-------------8-9
A---------7-8
E-----6-7
B-5-6


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## ncfiala

I'll call this one the 1+2 diminished scale. Here's a fingering starting on F#:



Code:


e--------------------------------14-16
b--------------------------13-15
G--------------------11-13
D-------------- 10-12
A----------9-11
E-----8-10
B-7-9

 
These might all be common scales for all I know, but I couldn't find anything about them and they're simple to play and can sound kind of cool.

Now I need to stop this nonsense and actually do something constructive I suppose.


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## angelophile

theres a recording here of me trying various exotic tonalities, some for the first time:

ragarock by danieljpeters on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free


Some Zappaesque stuff going on.


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## angelophile

(oops, sorry, here it is)

heres some some exotic scale improvs I did recently

01 Track 1 by danieljpeters on SoundCloud - Create, record and share your sounds for free

some Zappaesque stuff !


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## AugmentedFourth

Someday, someday I will read this thread. And It will be glorious.


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## ondellonoya

I want to share my fav syntetic scale.. I don't know the scale is already existed, but I found that this scale give a cool dissonant effect to *minor 7 *and* minor 7b5* chords, and I use it pretty much.. also works for *VIm7 - VII7 (or VIIm7b5) - III7* progression..

I took *Lydian* mode and flatten the 3rd so it has a minor flavor, it would be like this:
*Lydian b3*: *C - D - D# - F# - G - A - B*

hope it was useful!!


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## ondellonoya

Pooluke41 said:


> While watching my Malcom in the middle marathon I came up with an idea.
> 
> You assign each note a number, I do it; 1, 2, 3....
> Because 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 (As I think it is with 12 tone rows?) Is just illogical too me,
> 
> 1 = C
> 2 = C#
> 3 = D
> 4 = D#
> 5 = E
> 6 = F
> 7 = F#
> 8 = G
> 9 = G#
> 10 = A
> 11 = A#
> 12 = B
> 
> Then you choose numbers at random however you want. I've counted the amount of CD's inbetween gaps in my DVD rack when I first tried this.
> 
> So lets say we get;
> 
> 3 6 8 9 2 5 4 1 7 12 10 11
> 
> Then we group it, I've grouped it like this...
> 
> So now it's in two groups.(I group every two)
> 
> 3 8 2 4 7 10 And 6 9 5 1 12 11
> 
> I put it into order.
> 
> 2 3 4 7 8 10 and 1 5 6 9 11 12
> 
> These are
> 
> 1 = C#, D, D#, F#, G, A
> 2 = C , E, F , G#,A#, B
> 
> Ta-Da! Two new scales.
> 
> That pattern was preeeettttyyyy shit but I want to try this with the fibbonaci sequence.....
> 
> Please excuse me if you cannot understand this, but I didn't sleep last night.. While watching Malcom in the middle...



I think the way you're thinking of is similar with the twelve tone concept..  very cool..!


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## danbobdavis

Okay, so Lydian b2. I really like going back and forth between a blues scale (or a minor scale with a passing tone) on a I chord and then Lydian b2 on the IV chord. So in G minor, that would be:

G, A, Bb, C, Db, D, Eb, F, G
to
C, Db, E, F#, G, A, B, C

So the third (Bb) turns major (B), that passing tone (Db) becomes an actual scale tone, the sixth (Eb) becomes major (E), and the seventh (Bb) becomes major (B)

You can also take the seventh on Lydian b2 and make it dominant, so you're one note shy of a half-whole diminished scale.


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## danbobdavis

ondellonoya said:


> I want to share my fav syntetic scale.. I don't know the scale is already existed, but I found that this scale give a cool dissonant effect to *minor 7 *and* minor 7b5* chords, and I use it pretty much.. also works for *VIm7 - VII7 (or VIIm7b5) - III7* progression..
> 
> I took *Lydian* mode and flatten the 3rd so it has a minor flavor, it would be like this:
> *Lydian b3*: *C - D - D# - F# - G - A - B*
> 
> hope it was useful!!



If you also flat the seventh, you get the fourth mode of the harmonic minor. This is a cool scale, though. So even though it has a major seventh it sounds good over m7 chords, huh? Interesting...


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## AugmentedFourth

I came up with a synthetic scale recently which I call Mela Gan, or "The Mela Gan Scale", because on my initial search of the web for this scale, the spelling I used only found results on one website which had the scale name listed as "Mela Gan..." except the second word was like 12 letters long, so I abbreviated it:

1 #2 3 4 5 b6 7

in the key of C:

C D# E F G Ab B (C)

[Disclaimer: I was actually later able to find this scale in a few places on the net, where it seems to unanimously spelled "1 b3 3 4 5 b6 7", which also makes sense as while it eliminates a second degree, it avoids the spelling clash of a sharp and a flat by spelling, in the key of C, "Eb, E", but I still prefer the #2 convention.]

it's a bit fiendish in the lower tetrachord, since it leaves an aug. second and then (and this is the bad part) two minor second intervals after another, as one would _normally_ find in a scale with a blue note kind of shoved in there, e.g. 'the blues scale' (1 b3 4 b5 5 b7) but in a wholly heptatonic base-scale-no-blue-notes situation this is bad.

But I think it's pretty alright overall and thought it would be cool to leave attached a bit of a tune I wrote using it, which has a (short) chord progression and a melody:

riffmela.zip


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## Mr. Big Noodles

Sounds sick, dude. Nothing wrong with weird tetrachords. In fact, if you're looking to write something that's outside of the realm of boring old harmony, those augmented seconds and series of minor seconds provide a lot of interesting and ambiguous sonorities.


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## ondellonoya

danbobdavis said:


> If you also flat the seventh, you get the fourth mode of the harmonic minor. This is a cool scale, though. So even though it has a major seventh it sounds good over m7 chords, huh? Interesting...



yepp, if you google it somehow the fourth mode of harmonic minor is called jewish scale or harmonic gypsy (I'm not really sure which one, but that's definitely the 4th mode of harmonic minor)..

as for using Lydian b3 over m7 chords, it's kinda add tension to it which make it (for me), sounds really cool.. like if I'm playing on standards like Mr. PC, it's your choice to play which scale over that Cm7, usually I found many jazz guy replace the Aeolian with Melodic Minor (which of course also contain major seventh) over that chord.. I try to replace melodic minor that with this my synth scale and so far it works quite well..!


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## octatoan

Mr. Big Noodles said:


> If you're into the link between music and mathematics, I recommend that you look into the works of Béla Bartók. He made frequent and likely conscious use of fibonacci sequences, the golden mean, intervallic expansion and contraction, references to the harmonic series (he's one of the exponents of the acoustic scale), and, perhaps most importantly, symmetry. I can show you how he uses some of this stuff, if you want.


 Yes, please.


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## koa

yall thinking way too hard over this.


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## ElRay

koa said:


> yall thinking way too hard over this.



Newbie, don't mess with Mr. Big Noodles, otherwise The Dumpling Guy will serve you some yam.


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## Mr. Big Noodles

I made this thread 9 years ago as a naïve teenager. It's a bit goofy at times, but I think the contributions here show people's attempts at reaching beyond their selves to make something new. It's creative, which deserves encouragement.


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## Bobro

Mr. Big Noodles said:


> Woo, I found a cool one that's actually musical. It's basically a major scale with a lowered sixth and seventh, or, in C:
> C D E F G Ab Bb
> 
> The harmonies are:
> I iiº iiiº iv v VI+ VII
> 
> Now, many of those chords don't work out so well in a major progression, so I'm going to say that one could borrow the iiº, IVsus4, and VII from this scale with pleasing effect.



That's an Eastern European folk scale. The old Bulgarian folk music theory book I had called it "major-phrygian" because it's a major tetrachord (C D E F) with a phrygian tetrachord (G Ab Bb C) on top. I use ancient tetrachordal theory to make my scales. Since I don't use 12-tone equal temperament, I guess my scales wouldn't be much use to anyone here, but tetrachordal theory works for any tuning with strong clean fourths and fifths. You can't do all the ancient tetrachords in 12-tET, though you can on a quartertone (24-tET) guitar, but you can do some. For example, C C# D F F# G Bb is the ancient conjunct chromatic scale. Conjunct is when the upper tetrachord begins right off the fourth, F if C is the root tone, Disjunct is when it begins off of the fifth, which is G when C is the root tone of course. Like in middle-eastern maqam musics, a "modulation" can be just changing the inner tones of the tetrachord. 

If you tune your open strings to all fourths, you can really go to town with a tetrachordal approach.


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## bostjan

Bobro said:


> That's an Eastern European folk scale. The old Bulgarian folk music theory book I had called it "major-phrygian" because it's a major tetrachord (C D E F) with a phrygian tetrachord (G Ab Bb C) on top. I use ancient tetrachordal theory to make my scales. Since I don't use 12-tone equal temperament, I guess my scales wouldn't be much use to anyone here, but tetrachordal theory works for any tuning with strong clean fourths and fifths. You can't do all the ancient tetrachords in 12-tET, though you can on a quartertone (24-tET) guitar, but you can do some. For example, C C# D F F# G Bb is the ancient conjunct chromatic scale. Conjunct is when the upper tetrachord begins right off the fourth, F if C is the root tone, Disjunct is when it begins off of the fifth, which is G when C is the root tone of course. Like in middle-eastern maqam musics, a "modulation" can be just changing the inner tones of the tetrachord.
> 
> If you tune your open strings to all fourths, you can really go to town with a tetrachordal approach.



That's what I learned as the Hindu/Acoustic scale (a lot of these scales have different names for the same scale in different contexts), but I've also seen it refered to as "Major Phrygian" before. It's an anagram ("mode," if you will) off of the Overtone scale, which is also pretty cool.

"All" ancient tetrachords might be a bit misleading, though. There are a lot of different approaches that are not Middle Eastern, and 12-tET is a modern invention. Early music development parallels some modern pedagogy. Before forming a tetrachord, it is important to understand what an interval is. The harmonic seventh is quite poorly represented in 12-tET and even in 24-tET, for example. But, I think this scale can be enjoyed on a standard guitar without any modifications.


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## Bobro

bostjan said:


> That's what I learned as the Hindu/Acoustic scale (a lot of these scales have different names for the same scale in different contexts), but I've also seen it refered to as "Major Phrygian" before. It's an anagram ("mode," if you will) off of the Overtone scale, which is also pretty cool.
> 
> "All" ancient tetrachords might be a bit misleading, though. There are a lot of different approaches that are not Middle Eastern, and 12-tET is a modern invention. Early music development parallels some modern pedagogy. Before forming a tetrachord, it is important to understand what an interval is. The harmonic seventh is quite poorly represented in 12-tET and even in 24-tET, for example. But, I think this scale can be enjoyed on a standard guitar without any modifications.



On a 24-tET guitar you can do a near-perfect Pythagorean intonation of the ancient Enharmonic, Chromatic and Diatonic genera,that's what I meant by "all". The tuning I use is closer to 17-equal, so I can't really do a true Enharmonic, it's more of a soft Chromatic. Easier to sing and not as evil sounding because the microtones are about 70 cents rather than the 50 cent true quartertones of 24-tET, but basically the same thing.


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## bostjan

No kidding? My first three tunings outside of 12-EDO were 19, 17, and 7 EDO. Do you have a bandcamp or soundcloud?


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## Bobro

Yeah, I'm Cameron Bobro (my real American name, my Ukrainian name is Bobro Miron Juravič ) on Soundcloud. No electric guitar yet (my custom neck from Ron Sword is still in the post) but plenty of saz and clarinet. Here's me with my son Živan: 

https://soundcloud.com/cameron-bobro/sunlights-arms-cam-and-zhivan


bostjan said:


> No kidding? My first three tunings outside of 12-EDO were 19, 17, and 7 EDO. Do you have a bandcamp or soundcloud?


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