Some Useful Scales

Some of these scales will find places in your music. Scales can be great fillers and provide impressive connective tissue. Some of these scales are valuable mostly as exercises to build skill and confidence. Some of these scales are beautiful. Some are weird. But give all of them a try. Remember, scales define the population of tones from which melody is derived. Change the scale and you change the character of the melody.

Most of these scales are well known and found in many publications. Some of them were given to me by a student during the Swannanoa Gathering in North Carolina. These scales were presented as formulas to derive scales rather than musical scores of the scales. They reached me without any notice of copyright or source attribution. I pass these scales along as, to the best of my knowledge, public domain music and hope that you find them both as demanding and interesting as I have over the years.

A few of the more common scales appear below.

Pentatonic Scale - Five tones: do re me so la

Minor Pentationic Scale - Uses the same tones as the major pentatonic scale but start the scale a thrid below the normal starting tone.

Blues Scale I- Six tones. Flat the 3rd, 5th and 7th. Leave out the 2nd

Blues Scale II - This is a diatonic scale with the 3rd and 6th tones flatted

Whole Tone Scale - Each tone of this scale is one whole tone above the preceding tone. This arrangment of tones means that only two unique whole tone scales exist.

Natural Minor Scale - The natural minor scale is formed on the Aeolian mode of the diatonic scale. The key signatures looks like "D" but the scale is in the relative minor, Bm.

Harmonic Minor Scale - This is the natural minor scale with the 7th tone raised a half step. This scale is sometimes called the "Mohammedan " scale. That's because the harmonic minor scale is the same as an Arab maqam but dones not require the use of quarter tones.

Melodic Minor Scale - This one has generated a lot of ink by music theorists and composers. The scale has an ascending mode as shown in the pdf. It also has a descending mode which is simply the natural minor scale. The reason for these difference going up and down is that the harmonic support of the scale can get a little hard to manage. Some composers, like Mozart, used this trouble quite effectively. Most just ignore the conventions altogether.

To hear samples from Said the Moon or Spring Tide on the Tump,
Click on the images.