Everything that spills out past the seven diatonic notes.
Overview
The scales that live outside the seven diatonic Modes, eight notes covering the altered minors, the pentatonics, and the symmetrical scales, each documented with its structure, its character, and its use in practice.
The altered minors first: the Harmonic Minor, with a knife hidden in its raised seventh, and the Melodic Minor, a major scale that never got over its lowered third. Then the pentatonics, where subtraction does the work, the Major Pentatonic, five notes that cannot make a wrong sound, and the Minor Pentatonic, five notes carrying a whole century of feeling. Add one bruise of a blue note to the latter and you have the Blues Scale.
The symmetrical scales close the set: the Chromatic Scale, every door in the building at once; the Whole Tone scale, a staircase where every step is the same height; and the Diminished scale, alternating patience and menace.
Related
- Scales & Modes, the parent index
- Modes, the seven diatonic rotations
- Musical Keys, the keys the scales are transposed into