The Synthetic Scale Thread

[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:

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

 

[ncfiala]

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

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

 

[ncfiala]

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

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.

 

[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.

 

[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 !

 

[AugmentedFourth]

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

 

[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!!

 

[ondellonoya]

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..!

 

[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.

 

[danbobdavis]

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...

 

[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

 

[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.

 

[ondellonoya]

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..!

 

[octatoan]

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.

 

[koa]

yall thinking way too hard over this.

 

[ElRay]

yall thinking way too hard over this.

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

 

[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.

 

[Bobro]

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.

 

[bostjan]

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.

 

[Bobro]

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.