{"id":3460,"date":"2010-03-02T20:31:37","date_gmt":"2010-03-03T01:31:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/?p=3460"},"modified":"2022-01-31T17:33:05","modified_gmt":"2022-01-31T22:33:05","slug":"scales-and-emotions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/2010\/scales-and-emotions\/","title":{"rendered":"Scales and emotions"},"content":{"rendered":"

See also a post about making chords from scales<\/a>, and all of these scales in one giant flowchart<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

So maybe you want to write a song or an instrumental in a particular mood or style, and you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the scales. Here’s a handy guide to the commonly used scales in Western pop, rock, jazz, blues and so on. You can play all of these scales and more using the aQWERTYon<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Major scales<\/h1>\n

These scales have a major third (the note four that is four semitones above the root), which makes them feel happy or bright.<\/p>\n

Major scale<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Happy; can be majestic or sentimental when slow. The white keys on the piano. Examples: “Mary Had A Little Lamb,” “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.”<\/p>\n

Mixolydian mode<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Bluesy, rock; can also be exotic\/modal. Play over C7 chord. Same pitches as F major. Example: “Tomorrow Never Knows<\/a>” by the Beatles<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lydian mode<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ethereal, dreamy, futuristic. Same pitches as G major. Example: “Possibly Maybe” by Bj\u00f6rk<\/a> (from the line “As much as I definitely enjoy solitude…”)<\/p>\n

Lydian dominant mode<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Also known as the overtone scale or acoustic scale, because it is close to the first seven pitches in the natural overtone series. Same pitches as the G melodic minor scale and the F-sharp\/G-flat altered scale.<\/p>\n

Phrygian dominant mode<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Exotic, Middle Eastern, Jewish. Same pitches as F harmonic minor. Example: “Hava Nagila.”<\/p>\n

Harmonic major scale<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Majestic, mysterious. “Lord Of The Rings” feeling.<\/p>\n

Mixolydian b6<\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Another film-score-sounding mysterious scale. Same pitches as F melodic minor.<\/p>\n

Minor Scales<\/h1>\n

These scales have a flat third (the note that is three semitones above the root), which gives them a darker and more tragic feel.<\/p>\n

Natural minor scale (Aeolian mode)<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sentimental, tragic. Same pitches as E-flat major.<\/p>\n

Dorian mode<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Hip, sophisticated, jazzy. Same pitches as B-flat major. Example: “So What<\/a>” by Miles Davis.<\/p>\n

Harmonic minor scale<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Tragic, exotic, Middle Eastern.<\/p>\n

Melodic minor scale<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Mysterious, jazzy, very dark. Example: sixties Coltrane<\/a>. See a blog post<\/a> about melodic minor.<\/p>\n

Phrygian mode<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Spanish\/Flamenco. Same pitches as A-flat major.<\/p>\n

Locrian mode<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Very dark and unstable. Use over C half-diminished chords. Same pitches as C-sharp\/D-flat major and B-flat natural minor.<\/p>\n

Neither major nor minor<\/h1>\n

Blues scale<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Bluesy, obviously. Works great over major and minor chords. C minor pentatonic with sharp fourth\/flat fifth added.<\/p>\n

Altered scale<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Use over a C7 chord to make it sound very intellectual and jazzy. Same pitches as C-sharp\/D-flat melodic minor.<\/p>\n

Pentatonics<\/h1>\n

Pentatonic scales have five notes. The blues scale<\/a> is the minor pentatonic plus the flat fifth.<\/p>\n

Major pentatonic scale<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Joyful; widely used in world and folk music. Major scale with 4th and 7th removed. Same pitches as A minor pentatonic. Here’s a blog post about playing pentatonics on guitar<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Minor pentatonic scale<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/h2>\n

Widely used in rock, world and folk music. Minor scale with 2nd and 6th removed. Same pitches as E-flat major pentatonic. Here’s a blog post about playing pentatonics on guitar<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Synthetic Scales<\/h1>\n

These scales are based on regular, symmetric patterns.<\/p>\n

Chromatic scale<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

All of the piano keys. Freefalling, anxiety-producing.<\/p>\n

Whole tone scale<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Dreamy, underwater. Every alternating key on the piano. Same pitches as D, E, F#, G# and A# whole tone scales. Example: Background parts in the Simpsons theme song.<\/p>\n

Diminished scale<\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Dark, mysterious. Same pitches as Eb, Gb and A diminished scales. Examples: modern jazz, movies about Dracula.<\/p>\n

Octatonic scale<\/strong><\/a><\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Dark, mysterious. Same pitches as Eb, Gb and A octatonic scales. Examples: modern jazz, movies about Dracula.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

See also a post about making chords from scales, and all of these scales in one giant flowchart. So maybe you want to write a song or an instrumental in a particular mood or style, and you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the scales. Here’s a handy guide to the commonly used scales in Western pop, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Scales and emotions”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[909,234,9,927,498,12],"tags":[1625,1555,321,1338,1160,1559,640,773],"class_list":["post-3460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-composition","category-emotion","category-music","category-music-teaching","category-music-theory","category-software","tag-aqwertyon","tag-emotion","tag-harmony","tag-musedlab","tag-music-teaching-2","tag-music-theory","tag-scales","tag-visualization","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pAPdE-TO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3460"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25056,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3460\/revisions\/25056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ethanhein.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}