# If you were a scale, what scale would you/ would you want to be?



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

I would say 'explain', but the response itself is explanation enough IMO....I think I would probably be the octatonic.


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

Anhemitonic pentatonic. Closely followed by Dorian.


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## D Smith (Sep 13, 2014)

Pentatonic (anhemitonic yo scale). I find this scale as played in a lot of Japanese music to resonate most fully with me.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Klavierspieler said:


> Anhemitonic pentatonic


Which one? Any of them?


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## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Whichever scale says I weigh the least.


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## omega (Mar 13, 2014)

Mmmh... Octatonic scale. But anhemitonic pentatonic is cool, too.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Figleaf said:


> Whichever scale says I weigh the least.


Yeah, that one. Other than that I can't focus on scale, right now I'm a sinus. A snotty bleeding sinus.


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

Locrian. The red-headed step-child of scales.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

SuperTonic said:


> Locrian. The red-headed step-child of scales.


Here's some Locrianish music... the main riff at least.


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## musicrom (Dec 29, 2013)

I'll take the Korsakovian scale, aka the octatonic scale, thank you very much!


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## Klavierspieler (Jul 16, 2011)

Dim7 said:


> Which one? Any of them?


Prettymuch.  One of the ones common in British-American folk music.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

The Dorian scale is lovely for sax players. You start on D, and you don't hit any side keys (except high D) and don't even have to let up on the octave key.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

I'd be the Chant de Linos scale:









Half phrygian, half blues. It's awesome.


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

Whole-tone. Good luck making common triads with me!


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## omega (Mar 13, 2014)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> I'd be the Chant de Linos scale:
> 
> View attachment 69730
> 
> ...


You are right, Jolivet has had brilliant ways to play with scales and sounds.


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## manyene (Feb 7, 2015)

Dorian, very traditional and folk


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)




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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I'm the kind of person who would not want to identify with just one scale because I would then feel trapped by that definition. If forced to choose I would pick the chromatic because therein lies all the scales.


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## clavichorder (May 2, 2011)

The nine note scale as conceived by Alexander Tcherepnin. Awesome stuff!


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

clavichorder said:


> The nine note scale as conceived by Alexander Tcherepnin. Awesome stuff!


Wow, never even heard of that one before, what a neat scale.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Chromatic, of course.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Why is this thread in Community Forum? It's about music theory.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

Quarter-tone, *duh!!!*










I want that played on a piano, mmkay?


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

By "major Phrygian" does that imply only the 3rd being raised or does it also include the leading tone (major 7)?

If the leading tone isn't included, shouldn't it just be referred to as "Phrygian with a raised 3", and/or "dominant Phrygian"?


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

tdc said:


> By "major Phrygian" does that imply only the 3rd being raised or does it also include the leading tone (major 7)?
> 
> If the leading tone isn't included, shouldn't it just be referred to as "Phrygian with a raised 3", and/or "dominant Phrygian"?


I was thinking of the raised third, idk, 'dominant phrygian' kind of implies there is a functionality to the third note of the scale when it can be used otherwise so I guess I'm disinclined to phrase it that way. If you want the raised 7th, I guess vote for 'other' and mention it in the thread.


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## Cosmos (Jun 28, 2013)

Lydian and mixolydian hybrid. Very sunny atmospheres, and I'm trying to be a more positive person.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Cosmos said:


> Lydian and mixolydian hybrid. Very sunny atmospheres, and I'm trying to be a more positive person.


What a coincidence, we have a thread just for you.....


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## QuietGuy (Mar 1, 2014)

I voted octatonic. The particular octatonic scale I'm thinking of is the second of Olivier Messiaen's Modes of Limited Transposition.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> I was thinking of the raised third, idk, 'dominant phrygian' kind of implies there is a functionality to the third note of the scale when it can be used otherwise so I guess I'm disinclined to phrase it that way.


Well, that is a good enough reason for me, I was just curious. One of my favorite scales for sure, (the Phrygian with the raised 3) I can't say I'm familiar with any works that also have a raised 7 in the scale.


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Cosmos said:


> Lydian and mixolydian hybrid. Very sunny atmospheres, and I'm trying to be a more positive person.


By the way, there is a name for this so-called "hybrid." It's the acoustic scale:










Bartok and Scriabin are probably the most well-known proponents of this scale.

And don't forget the hexatonic (aka augmented hexatonic) scale! Highly used by Bartok.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Hexatonic? What is this and how can I get one???


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Here's a piece which uses my favorite mode (not counting minor and major), Lydian mode. About a half of the piece is in the mode, including the first 20 seconds.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Lydian. Like major, but more so. Landini cadences and late Beethovenian mysticism.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

isorhythm said:


> Lydian. Like major, but more so. Landini cadences and late Beethovenian mysticism.


The third movement of Beethoven's SQ 15 doesn't sound like lydian to me at all, though according to the composer himself it is in the mode.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Dim7 said:


> The third movement of Beethoven's SQ 15 doesn't sound like lydian to me at all, though according to the composer himself it is in the mode.


The Lydian sections actually use no accidentals at all, making it more Lydian than most old music which often used a B flat and became effectively major/Ionian.

To our ears that movement can sound like C major that spends a lot of time around, and ends on, the subdominant. We tend to hear a lot of modal music that way - for example any number of 16th century pieces in the Phrygian mode tend to sound to us like they end on unresolved dominants.


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## Guest (Jun 2, 2015)

I was going to vote Phrygian but then I saw Major Phrygian which basically trumped it.


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

Pentatonic, because I'm simple and exotic


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## Piwikiwi (Apr 1, 2011)

SuperTonic said:


> Locrian. The red-headed step-child of scales.


Locrian is a lie made up by theorists!


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

It's all Greek to me. I listen to a lot of classical but would not know one scale from another. Are scales like a mathematical thing or are they more like an artsy thing? Or both?


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

Florestan said:


> It's all Greek to me. I listen to a lot of classical but would not know one scale from another. Are scales like a mathematical thing or are they more like an artsy thing? Or both?


They have different sounds, because they are the arrangements of notes used for a piece or a section of a piece. Most of the music written in the common practice period (Baroque, Classical, and Romantic) uses the major (generally considered bright or happy) and minor (generally considered dark or gloomy) scales only, with a few extra notes imported from the chromatic scale on occasion (which just consists of all of the notes on the keyboard), but there were more scales in use before that and have been several others that have come into prominence since.


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