# Music that Uses Exotic Scales



## Bevo (Feb 22, 2015)

Hello everyone. I really enjoy hearing music making use of exotic scales, such as the Phrygian Dominant scale, and other gypsy scales. But I'm having a difficult time finding instrumental music that makes use of these types of scales. I suppose it's music you'd hear in like Aladdin, because it's roots are from the middle-east, but does anyone have any suggestions from classical music? I personally prefer orchastral, but any instrumentation will work fine. The closest things I've been able to find, other than film scores, is Saint-Saens' s fifth Piano Concerto and Rimsky-Korsakov's Sheherazade. Any other suggestions? Thanks.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Liszt's Faust Symphony uses the Augmented scale.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Bartok is your guy.


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## Guest (Apr 6, 2015)

Bevo said:


> Hello everyone. I really enjoy hearing music making use of exotic scales, such as the Phrygian Dominant scale, and other gypsy scales. But I'm having a difficult time finding instrumental music that makes use of these types of scales. I suppose it's music you'd hear in like Aladdin, because it's roots are from the middle-east, but does anyone have any suggestions from classical music? I personally prefer orchastral, but any instrumentation will work fine. The closest things I've been able to find, other than film scores, is Saint-Saens' s fifth Piano Concerto and Rimsky-Korsakov's Sheherazade. Any other suggestions? Thanks.


Try the huge amount of music for the chromatic scale! Schoenberg did cool things with it, but it goes further than that!


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

There is Rimsky-Korsakoff's _Antar_, which is exotic in much the same way as _Sheherazade_.

Then there are the many works of Shostakovich influenced by Jewish music, the Trio in E minor, the Fourth, Ninth and Tenth String Quartets, and many others, the finales of these works especially.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

A lot of Grieg's piano music, based on or inspired by Norwegian hardanger fiddle music, uses the "Lydian" sharped fourth note of the major scale.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

nathanb said:


> Try the huge amount of music for the chromatic scale! Schoenberg did cool things with it, but it goes further than that!


With respect - this is more or less the opposite of what OP is asking for.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Harry Partch didn't limit himself to standard scales.


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## Guest (Apr 6, 2015)

isorhythm said:


> With respect - this is more or less the opposite of what OP is asking for.


Can't get a whole lot more exotic than a scale that contains essentially every scale in the Western system


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Woodduck said:


> A lot of Grieg's piano music, based on or inspired by Norwegian hardanger fiddle music, uses the "Lydian" sharped fourth note of the major scale.


Specific examples?


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

Debussy, "Voiles" uses the whole-tone scale.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I think the majority of early 20th century composers would qualify here. For example most of the works of Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky and Bartok.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

MoonlightSonata said:


> Debussy, "Voiles" uses the whole-tone scale.


That piece is particularly whole-toney, yes. Debussy uses that scale a LOT in general though.


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## Guest (Apr 6, 2015)

GreenMamba said:


> Harry Partch didn't limit himself to standard scales.


Note: My like for your post is based on the fact that your post exceeds my standard "exoticness threshhold" and has thus merited a like.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

A lot of Spanish music features the Phrygian mode with the raised third, check out some of the famous works by Albeniz and Falla. Ravel's _Alborada del Gracioso_ also uses Phrygian and Phrygian w/ raised third. _Sad Birds_ a piece from the same piano suite (_Miroirs_) uses Japanese scales.


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## Bevo (Feb 22, 2015)

Well thank you all for the responses, but just to clarify, I'm looking specifically for more middle-eastern sounding music, such as Jewish music, and not just "whole tone" or "chromatic" scales. Sorry for the misunderstanding.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Dim7 said:


> Specific examples?


Grieg:_ Slatter_, op. 72 




Some of these are distinctly "exotic." There are many other examples of Lydian modal feeling, as well as some alternative minor modes, scattered throughout his works, especially those with "Norwegian" or "folk song" in their titles.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Satie's Gnoisiennes use both whole-tone and quasi-Oriental scales, using augmented seconds and fourths. In the first one, the weird scale is pretty noticeable. I think they have a middle-eastern sound, but I think they're really more like Romanian music.


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## 20centrfuge (Apr 13, 2007)

This piece by the Turkish composer Fazil Say, the Mesopotamia Symphony seems to be exactly what you are looking for:


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## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

tdc said:


> A lot of Spanish music features the Phrygian mode with the raised third, check out some of the famous works by Albeniz and Falla. Ravel's _Alborada del Gracioso_ also uses Phrygian and Phrygian w/ raised third. _Sad Birds_ a piece from the same piano suite (_Miroirs_) uses Japanese scales.


 Yeah, the major Phrygian sounds like what the OP is talking about.



Bevo said:


> Hello everyone. I really enjoy hearing music making use of exotic scales, such as the Phrygian Dominant scale, and other gypsy scales. But I'm having a difficult time finding instrumental music that makes use of these types of scales. I suppose it's music you'd hear in like Aladdin, because it's roots are from the middle-east, but does anyone have any suggestions from classical music? I personally prefer orchastral, but any instrumentation will work fine. The closest things I've been able to find, other than film scores, is Saint-Saens' s fifth Piano Concerto and Rimsky-Korsakov's Sheherazade. Any other suggestions? Thanks.


Like tdc said, ravel would be a good composer for you to check out, scales derived from the Spanish-Arabic influence are featured fairly frequently in his music. Rachmaninov also has a tendency to use similar-sounding scales but in a very different way. Shockingly, bruckner's 6th symphony is a pretty noteworthy example, the first movement.

The Spanish composers probably use what you're looking for (predictably), maybe try Granados as well as the ones that have already been mentioned. For Jewish-sounding scales or musical gestures.....Bloch comes to mind, esp. Suite hebraique.

You might also be interested in/ looking for the octatonic scale.......early 20th century music by the likes of ravel, Stravinsky, and bartok are pretty big on it.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

Verdi used an unconventional scale in his Ave Maria from the _Quattro Pezzi Sacri_, known as the "enigmatic" scale.
It looks like this:








The scale is rather unusual in that it avoids a P4 and P5 above the tonic. It's difficult to compare with other scales due to its odd arrangement of intervals. Verdi was supposed to have invented it for the Ave Maria and it was hardly ever used again.


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

Listen to Charles Tomlinson Griffes' _Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan_.


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

Check out the music of Aram Kachaturian. He was of Armenian descent and a lot of his music has that middle eastern flavor to it. His most popular work is probably the ballet Gayane.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

How about Ahmed Saygun? He was kind of like the Turkish Bartok.

Here's the last movement of his 1st string quartet. It's probably along the lines of what you may be looking for. No promises though, I can't read your mind.






Also, I have to be true to my name and recommend his viola concerto.






Also, if you are looking for Jewish sounding music, why not just go straight to the source?






And here's some other Middle Eastern folk music collaborated with the Kronos Quartet

From Iraq: 




From Azerbaijan:


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## Morimur (Jan 23, 2014)

Well, there's Persian and Arabic classical music.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

And Indian classical music.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Hungarian Gypsy Scale:






Love it!


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Respighi: _Concerto in Modo Misolidio_. Prokofiev: Op. 34, _Overture on Hebrew Themes_. Prokofiev's String Quartet No. 2, especially the slow movement, has a strong oriental influence, as do also Hovhaness' Piano Concerto No. 1 (_Lousadzak_), and Violin Concerto No. 2


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## JeffD (May 8, 2017)

Of course there is a wealth of Klezmer music on line. Any video of Giora Feidman is amazing. For a lot of reasons.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Of the people following Debussy I'd suggest Cyril Scott, who used the whole-tone scale a lot and also Willem Pijper, who made so much use of the octatonic scale it became known as 'the Pijper scale' in the Netherlands.

Jut because I want to, I'm posting Pijpers short, but excellent _Six Symphonic Epigrams_, because it should be heard:


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)




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## Irusia (Oct 20, 2021)

Lord of the Rings soundtrack has some exotic sounding music, for example Lothlorien theme.
I'm looking for more music like that. I'll go through the recommendations in this thread first, and then see whether I find something.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

.


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

For Camille Saint Saens, I can add these:

Suite Algerienne 
Piano Concerto No. 5, ‘Egyptian’ (which you know)
Africa – Fantasy for Piano and Orchestra

And, above all, Bacchanale !!! - the popular ballet music from the opera Samson et Dalila, which is also played as a concert piece.

The famous aria of Dalila from the same opera might contain some augmented seconds to hint at the Arabic scale, but I am not sure there.


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## BBSVK (10 mo ago)

The 19 century operas with the features of exoticism are generally a good place to go. A man from Europe visits an exotic place, where a scantily clad woman wants to sleep with him very badly - if you have this plot, chances are high, you also get some exotic scales.
In a ballet, it is a celebration, where guests are entertained by artists from abroad.


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