Scale Thread

ITT we discuss our favourite scales.

Dorian, good for improvisation.

Whatever the scale is for all the black keys on the piano that make it sound chinese. :^)

that would be a Db pentatonic

I find most if not all modal scales great for improv.

>not using chromatic to piss people off

My band teacher would always tell us that if we felt stuck just go with Dorian. Worked out for me!

This is a pretty musically ignorant question. Like asking what your favorite segment of clothing is, like yeah I prefer shirts over pants, pants aren't really as important

major and minor pentatonic, there are a lot of pentatonic scales apart from those

Any scale run other than major hurts my ears.

one time i just set up a sampler and used it to play sine waves at a set of frequencies that divided each doubling of the frequency into 10 equal parts, and i used the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th and 9th. most fun i've ever had just fucking around outside of normal notes.

99% of the time i use major, natural minor and pentatonic

harmonic minor every now and then, almost never use modes

It's a Gb major pentatonic or Eb minor pentatonic tho

I was taught that pentatonic scales were 1-2-4-5-6 but then I looked it up and apparently there are many different types (never thought about it before but that's actually pretty obvious). 1-2-4-5-6 is specifically called the yo scale and is used in Japanese traditional music.

Ok yeah that makes sense. In western music theory you only hear about "major" and "minor" pentatonic scales but there are definitely other ones, after all it literally only means a scale with 5 notes

Dorian is the patrician scale.
Also microtonal greek dorian is cool (I - ii - bII - IV - V - iv - bIV) (flats mean only a quarter tone below here)

good tier
dorian
lydian
mixolydian

>ok tier
ionian
aeolian
phrygian

>shit tier
locrian

>tfw no one likes the locrian mode
no one likes diminished chords either, maybe because they're too awesome

>implying
If you're going to go for le edgy diminished chords you might as well go all the way and just use the octatonic scale instead, locrian just sounds like shit

plebian:ionian aeolian
contrarian:locrian mixolydian lydian
patrician:phrygian dorian

From what I've heard from a piano teacher I had, the locrian mode works in other temperaments, the equal temperament killed locrian.

diminished 7th and augmented chords are both symmetrical. they're both very good for creating moments of tonal ambiguity and diminished 7th chords have the added bonus of having two tritones that could resolve inwards or outwards and such, you can use them to do all sorts of tonal trickery. for an example, you can use a F#dim7 in the key of C minor to modulate to G minor, and then you can use the same F#-A-C-Eb spelled enharmonically as A-C-Eb-Bb to modulate to Bb, or as C-Eb-Gb-Bbb to get to Db, or D#-F#-A-C to get to E. it's a really diverse chord and "edginess" is only a minor part of its usefulness

Diminished 7ths don't exist in the locrian mode though, but they do in the octatonic scale like I said. Augmented chords don't exist in either.

who would win in a figh, C or B whole tone scale?

oh i wasn't talking about the locrian mode, I was just referring diminished chords in Western tonal harmony

C whole tone scale

>I was taught that pentatonic scales were 1-2-4-5-6
Technically pentatonic just means that it's 5 notes. But THE pentatonic is 1-2-3-5-6 in any major scale (ionian, lydian, mixolydian) or 1-3-4-5-7 in any minor scale (aeolian, dorian, or phrygian). slave derived music (gospel, blues, and their derivatives) are pentatonics heavy because all the black keys make a pentatonic scale and pentatonic scales are very melodic and natural. asian countries also have a heavy pentatonic focus.

Fun pentatonic trick: Playing a C major pentatonic over a C major chord/chord progression gives you a ionian sound. Playing a D major pentatonic over a C major chord/chord progression gives you a lydian sound. Playing a Bb major pentatonic over a C major chord/chord progression gives you a mixolydian sound. Playing a C minor pentatonic over a C minor chord/chord progression gives you a aeolian sound. Playing a D minor pentatonic over a C minor chord/chord progression gives you a dorian sound. Playing a Bb minor pentatonic over a C minor chord/chord progression gives you a phrygian sound.

Objectively B Whole Tone

If you have one favorite scale you must have the most narrow taste in music imaginable.

phrygian dominant

>C
nice and friendly, symmetrical if you start on D, supports equality
>B
racist, only two black notes per four white, can't be made symmetrical no matter what note you start on, shares too many notes with pleb tier C ionian scale

since i'm not an edgy faggot gonna have to go with C

so this is the thread for people who like to talk about playing music but don't actually play.
because having a "favorite scale" is the most ridiculous thing. you can call a scale a dozen different names and only the roots change but the steps between the notes and the shapes/patterns the make stay the same.