# Mathcore scales



## XMattxMetalX (Apr 15, 2008)

I am finding a great interest in mathcore. if anyone knows any mathcore scales or playing techniques or tips to help me out


also if anyone could help me out on sweep picking techniques....


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## MattyCakes (Apr 15, 2008)

mathcore scales...................................................


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## Apophis (Apr 15, 2008)

Use search button my friend


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## SevenDeadly (Apr 15, 2008)

E--2+2--
b--2/8--E=mc^2--
g--a=-b(+,- Square root)--
d--Diminished^8.2E/Delta Pi
a--well, you get the idea
e--I'm a sarcastic poojabber
b--so, You + her=music-fun/when she's too fat=cut and run


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## guitarplayerone (Apr 15, 2008)

Use the circle of 12 tones (how do you think they wrote The Machinations of Dementia?).

Any 'synthetic scales', that is modes of melodic minor, etc, are good.

Harmonic major, lydian b7, etc.

Umm... what do you mean sweep picking help? just go practice.

math metal imo is much more about polyrythms and odd times than it is about using wierd scales. I think its more about more unusual key changes, etc, but the whole point of math metal is that there are 'rules'. (vs free jazz lol). furthermore, I'm going to guess here that if you don't know how to sweep yet, you havent memorized your modes of major, harmonic, and melodic minor. so learn those first, (esp major), before you attempt to do some fully synthetic stuff (or other exotic scales you will find chilling around).

it always helps to learn some music theory. It seems contradictory to learn classical and jazz music theory to play things like Spastic Ink and Behold the Arctopus, but fyi- those guys REALLY know their theory. The more unusual chord progressions and wierd scales you use, the more the human ear percieves what you are playing as 'noise'. Good math metal walks that very fine line (and this is very difficult to do).

Rythym is the backbone to any music. Learn some 3over4 poly's, 2over3 etc, and get comfortable playing in odd time signatures based on these (basically just listen to lots of Meshuggah for a month or two), and you will notice your music will sound much more 'math' just from that.

Aside from that, there is no universal way to play 'mathcore', or 'prog', etc whatever. It's all about self-expression, and unfortunately that usually comes waay after mastering the core techniques of playing (in that style of music anyway)

that is the difference between technical 'masturbation' (and/or noise) and creating engaging music, which happens to be technical as a side-effect of its uniqueness.


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## Wolfster (May 15, 2008)

well said.


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## neon_black88 (May 15, 2008)

SevenDeadly said:


> E--2+2--
> b--2/8--E=mc^2--
> g--a=-b(+,- Square root)--
> d--Diminished^8.2E/Delta Pi
> ...





Mathcore scales 

Dont look at scales as genre defining.


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## S-O (May 15, 2008)

Take a major scale... And through it away.

Make 9 tone scales from 'scratch'

Just throw 9 intervals together 

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

1 #2 3 4 #4 5 6 #6 7 (octave/8)

Then take a straight 8ths rhythm in 7/8, write it out: 
&#9834;&#9834;&#9834;&#9834;&#9834;&#9834;&#9834;

Then erase 1 8th note: (.'s will be where 8ths previously were, or think of it as an 8th note rest)
&#9834;&#9834;.&#9834;&#9834;&#9834;&#9834;

Then make all the permutations for taking one note away.

Then take 2 notes away:
&#9834;&#9834;.&#9834;.&#9834;&#9834;

Do this for all permutations, moving on to taking 3, 4, 5, and 6 notes away.

Then add some rhythms togther, I will use the two I wrote  :
|&#9834;&#9834;.&#9834;&#9834;&#9834;&#9834;|&#9834;&#9834;.&#9834;.&#9834;&#9834;|

Then assign notes from thye scale you made up 

| C C . D# D# E E | C C . D# . E E |

tuh duh! 

This can generate some intersting sounds.

Try using different time signatures, odd and normal ones. Like 8/8 (4/4), 11/8, 9/8, 6/8, etc...

Also try scales with less notes, like whole tone scales, pentatonic scales, mutant freak pentatonic scales with odd intervals.

Then combine time sigs and scales for über crazy rhythms.

Then try to make melodies out of it, skip octaves, insane strin skipping from the low B and high E, all that jazz. Hell, try sweeping, it comes up with weird sounds.


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## Randy (May 15, 2008)

^
Wow... I've never seen this explained that way. Sweet!


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## S-O (May 15, 2008)

Also another way is to accent certain beats, or have the measure divided up into groups.

Play these on your thighs, every one, or accented beat, should be played either louder or with your dominat hand and the other being 234567... and so on.

In 7/8
12 12 123 <- I like this one the best
123 12 12
12 123 12 <- sounds weird.
12 12 12 1 <- this one is cool
1 12 12 12 <- same thing backwards
123 1234
1234 123
123 123 1
1 123 123
make up your own now 

in 11/8, I like this one because of how many options there are.
1234 123 12 12
123 123 123 12
12 123 12 123 1
1234 1234 123
there are tons more, I didn't make too many so you can make your own.

Then try insane time sigs!

23/8
1234 123 123 12 123 1234 1234
1 12 123 1234 12 123 1234 1234
these are hard to groove 

Then, using the same method as before, 'delete' beats to form cool rhythms!

These ideas are the tip of the mathcore/syncopation/polyrhythm iceberg. make up stuff, branch off from ideas, through everything out play as if a monkey was playing, try to make computer noises like the old dial up sounds. Record sounds you hear while out in the city, like jackhammers, car horns, people talking, birds chirping, leaves rustling, babies crying, someone screaming. Then go home and work the rhythms/notes out on your instrument, or while chillin on the bus try tapping it out on your thighs or the seat.


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## TomAwesome (May 15, 2008)

Mathcore? I don't think I'm familiar with this genre. It sounds like something I'd either love (math-) or hate (-core).


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## MatthewK (May 15, 2008)

I think pretty much anything goes in mathcore. As long as it sounds wild 'n crazy. I don't get the impression that Ben Weinman from The Dillinger Escape Plan is a huge theory buff, y'know? Obviously you need a decent understanding of time signatures. As far as scales, anything that sounds unusual.


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## neon_black88 (May 15, 2008)

MatthewK said:


> I think pretty much anything goes in mathcore. As long as it sounds wild 'n crazy. I don't get the impression that Ben Weinman from The Dillinger Escape Plan is a huge theory buff, y'know? Obviously you need a decent understanding of time signatures. As far as scales, anything that sounds unusual.



Or anything that you happen to play and sounds cool.



> Mathcore? I don't think I'm familiar with this genre. It sounds like something I'd either love (math-) or hate (-core).





I think its a pretty stupid genre name to be honest, do any bands actually call themselves that? I remmember people were calling meshuggah math metal and they made this face


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## S-O (May 15, 2008)

the Dillinger Escape Plan is the best example of mathcore.

For some reason I love DEP. And I am usually into more brütal things than that.

Another nifty trick is to take reciepts you get and save them. Go home and take each number and correspond it to a scale tone.

For example if I bought somehting and it ended up being $7.11, I would play B C C

I usually assign them in ascending order:
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
B C D E F G A B C D


But you can reverse it so D = 0 and B = 9

also this can be done for any scale/mode you want.

So if I bought something for 0.99 I would play B DD
then if the next item was 195 I would play C D G

B D D C D G

Then use whatever rhythm I want, since I haven't developed a way to make rhythms from reciepts yet. Still working on that.

Also, take the little snippets and move them around within the scale, so the above example could be moved up to C E E D E A, with the same rhythm. I lhow this comes up with intervals and ideas you would not normally think of.

Also, you can do this for words. Assign each letter a number. Also include symbols like . * and ! ( ) % and $

a, i, q, y, &= 1 
b, j, r, z, *= 2 
c, k, s, !, (= 3 
d, l, t, @, )= 4 
e, m, u, #, -= 5 
f, n, v, $, += 6
g, o, w, % = 7
h, p, x, ^, = = 8

Then use words. If you really want to you can include capital letters as being different intervals.

the words 'word' would be, using the little key I made, :

7 7 2 4
B B D F

Funny how that came up with a dimminished arp :O

Then move it through the scale, this particular example is rather tame. It wll end up being traid arps :\

Then take this entire concept and apply it to chords :O

'word' would be a dimminished chord :/
_________

I like to come up with these overly complicated ideas and methods to come up with crazy little licks and such :O Whip out your Algebra book, or calculas (that one would have insane things to play with! ) or maybe your favorite novel, go through an entire chapter and make a nonsense song out of it  Then take it, and make sense out of it. This comes up with unusual sounds that will sound fresh dawg.

Word.


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## XMattxMetalX (Jun 5, 2008)

thanks, that helped out quite a bit.
i can sweep pick now just practiced some just dont know too many scales


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## S-O (Jun 5, 2008)

Go buy The Guiatr Grimoire Scale Book, or what every it is called. Aesome stuff  Shows all the major, melodic minor, harmonic minor and their modes. It also has crazy scales I hadn't really heard of before when I had first got this book (back when I first started out, finding and digesting everything my nüb brain could.) like hungarian major and minor, neopolitan, altered, bebop minor/major, and other madness. Also the rest of the guitar grimoire series is great 

Rip through everything you can


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## british beef (Jun 6, 2008)

harmonic minor, diminished, dominant phrygian, locrian, lydian.
mix and match, lots of tritones and minor seconds.


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## HammerAndSickle (Jun 6, 2008)

SO, you're hilarious XD nothing, nothing is more random than using a receipt from buying slim jims or something to compose a song.

Genius.


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## Metaljim (Jun 6, 2008)

S-O said:


> the Dillinger Escape Plan is the best example of mathcore.
> 
> For some reason I love DEP. And I am usually into more brütal things than that.
> 
> ...



Amazing! Great ideas, I'm going to try those out.


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## S-O (Jun 6, 2008)

My creative juices don't flow properly :O I supplement it with crutches 

But really, (realy? meh...) I love how it comes out all roboty; but, with proper coaxing, you can come up with really organic stuff. I love the wide sound of the large intervals, but I also dig the über tight stuff  

Also, my Steve Vai worshipping led me to come up with these ideas 

I am off to Louisianna, so if I come across somethign new on my travels, I shall posteth them here.


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## Jongpil Yun (Jun 7, 2008)

Try to assign 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, and B to the notes of the chromatic scale, take strings of numbers (e, pi, angles in radians converted to degrees), convert them to base 12, and play it.

Also:

0 = 16th note
1 = 8th note
2 = Quarter note
3 = Half note
4 = Whole note
5 = 16th note rest
6 = 8th note rest
x = 16th note triplet?

There should be some way to nicely map a string of numbers in some base into a rhythm. Then it would work like this: Choose one string of numbers (sqrt 2, lets say), ignore the decimal place to turn it into an integer, plug it into a converter, and what pops out is the sequence of notes you play. In this case, 9 digits of sqrt(2) turns into 3B441090. In the key of C (1=C), that'd be... D B D# D# C A G# A. Then get another string of numbers (e, I guess), get 8 digits of that in base whatever for your rhythm mapping, and viola, you have a phrase.

I'm too lazy to do any kind of real rhythm mapping right now though. A good idea for anyone who wants to try would be to ignore more than one rest in a row.


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## metalmonster (Jun 8, 2008)

sweet thread . far more interesting than i thought . i keep on reading all of this !


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## Snoop (Aug 12, 2008)

thx, very nice thread!
The most useful is *S-O*'s ideas!
Any more tips?


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## S-O (Aug 14, 2008)

Amazon.com: Thesaurus Of Scales And Melodic Patterns (Text): Nicolas Slonimsky: Books

This book is flat out awesome.

It divides the octave up into equal parts to create new scales. Then using interpolation and other techniques, creates variations.

These can sound robotic, think Buckethead, or help you get a wall of sound, think John Coltrane, or that way out there sound, think Allan Holdsworth.

Obviously not my idea, but taking these ideas within and creating songs is what the book is for. I composed a song that was supposed to represent HP Lovecraft's character, Cthulu, who's meer image could drive a man insane, the ideas within were useful in getting the chaotic mind boggling concept of Cthulu's exsistance.

Composing with the ideas can create amazing sounds. Frank Zappa used the book, so did John Adams (not that john Adams...)

Best ~$20 I ever spent on a musical book.

Then go buy (find) a Real Book, they are books filled with leadsheets to Jazz Standards. Try creating songs using the leadsheets. Don't worry, it's not cheating  The majority of Jazz standards are just Show tunes that have been changed up a bit harmonically (and show tunes were already pretty harmonically rich)

Since the type of sound I hear in my head is a Frank Zappa and Miles Davis meets Charlie Parker and John Coltrane meets Meshuggah and Fear Factory meets Cynic and Atheist meets Rusty Cooley and Steve Vai. The ideas and books I have mentioned help me reach the sound I hear in my head. I have not quite reached it yet, but the dots are starting to connect.


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## All_¥our_Bass (Sep 12, 2008)

S-O said:


> Obviously not my idea, but taking these ideas within and creating songs is what the book is for. I composed a song that was supposed to represent HP Lovecraft's character, Cthulu, who's meer image could drive a man insane, the ideas within were useful in getting the chaotic mind boggling concept of Cthulu's exsistance.


Do you have a recording of that?
Also there's a band called "Eric Zann" or something like that. You might wanna dig that up.


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