Sax on the Web Forum banner

What are these scales?

1070 Views 4 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  Mime
I've recently started working out the Joe Allard 3 Octave Scales and Chords book. It is organized by key and there is a section where there are a series of scales arpeggiated in 3rds. I can identify the parent scales for all of these except two.
They are:
1.) C, Db, Eb, F, G, A, B, C
2.) C, D, Eb, F#, G, Ab, B, C

Are they synthetic scales or is there a mode with which they can be related?
1 - 5 of 5 Posts
well...the second one is C hungarian minor, according to Hal Leonard pocket music dictionary. As to the first, I am not sure...

Good luck with the first!
i'm not sure what you'd call the first scale, but it's really just a whole tone scale with one extra note(the C). i love to use this trick myself. just take a whole tone scale and add one note...you'll get that little chromatic bit..and it gives the scale more of a "center" rather than the ambiguousness of the whole tone scale. great scale. like a bebop scale..it just has that one extra note...so maybe you should call it a bebop whole tone scale..heh..
i've been obsessed with this one:
C C# D F F# G G# B

it's one of the messiaen modes of limited transposition(#4)...another really cool sounding(and useful) scale.
I'm not sure if it has a name (probably does) but the first one could be a b2 melodic minor. This scale is used for example in Ravel piano concerto in G major. It is right at the end, when you expect it to finish G G F# E D C B A G and it finishes G G F# E D C Bb Ab G. Especially surprising after hearing all that G major before. Great piece!
Not sure but I think according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_mode

The first is a Phrygian III.

I remember seeing this mode before but can't recall it's name. It's the one where the 2nd and 3rd degree's are half step below usual.
1 - 5 of 5 Posts
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top