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Scales

Scales in music are like the alphabet in a written language: you need to know the scales to write, but that alone will not get you to where you want to go. Typing out the alphabet over and over will not make you compose poetry better, but you need to know the alphabet to compose poetry.

It's important when doing solos to know where all of the tonics are. There are your stopping points

  • ex. in key of C, know where all the C's are

When practicing scales it's important to mix up the scales you're doing, otherwise you risk falling into muscle memory.

Pentatonic

“Ah, so one major pentatonic scale cannot be applied universally to a chord progression. To sound good I have to match the scale to the specific chord being played.

  • I can accomplish that by using CAGED patterns to match up with the chords in a progression.” -->

Scale characterizations

Chromatic

Chromatic refers to the presence of all 12 pitches, each separated by a semitone interval.

  • sometimes we make a dichotomy between chromatic and diatonic. All that's to say is that chromatic refers to the notes/chords that don't belong (ie. not diatonic).

Diatonic

When we say something is "diatonic", we say that it belongs in the context. In other words, it belongs in the scale we are currently in.

  • ex. In the key of Cmaj, the notes that are diatonic are C D E F G A B
  • anal: the letter e is diatonic to the English language, but é is not
    • notable in this analogy is that there is nothing wrong with using non-diatonic letter in English, as in the word "naïveté".

A diatonic scale is a subset of a chromatic scale, since all notes of a diatonic scale exist in the corresponding chromatic scale.

Pentatonic

A pentatonic scale has 4 notes

  • spec: they are major scales without the 4th or 7th scale degrees

The major penatonic is the major scale with most dissonant notes (4th and 7th removed)

  • I-ii-iii-V-vi

The tone that points least strongly to the tonic is the fifth scale degree, G in the C major scale, and it points least strongly because it is perceived as relatively stable;

Blues

The blues scale is a pentatonic scale with an added ♭V.

Scale Degrees

Subtonic

The degree of a scale that is a whole step below the tonic.

  • thus, in a major scale it is non-diatonic, as the 7th is only a half step below the tonic, making the subtonic a flattened 7th.
  • in a natural minor scale is it diatonic.

UE Resources

Children
  1. Minor