music Music is the arrangement of sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm, or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Music is generally agreed to be a cultural universal that is present in all hum ...

and

music theory Music theory is the study of theoretical frameworks for understanding the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory": The first is the "Elements of music, ...

, a hexatonic scale is a scale with six pitches or

notes Note, notes, or NOTE may refer to: Music and entertainment * Musical note, a pitched sound (or a symbol for a sound) in music * ''Notes'' (album), a 1987 album by Paul Bley and Paul Motian * ''Notes'', a common (yet unofficial) shortened versi ...

per

octave In music, an octave (: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is an interval between two notes, one having twice the frequency of vibration of the other. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been referr ...

. Famous examples include the

whole-tone scale In music, a whole-tone scale is a scale in which each note is separated from its neighbors by the interval of a whole tone. In twelve-tone equal temperament, there are only two complementary whole-tone scales, both six-note or '' hexatonic'' ...

, C D E F G A C; the augmented scale, C D E G A B C; the

Prometheus scale In music and music theory, a hexatonic scale is a scale with six pitches or notes per octave. Famous examples include the whole-tone scale, C D E F G A C; the augmented scale, C D E G A B C; the Prometheus scale, C D E F A B C; and the blues sca ...

, C D E F A B C; and the

blues scale The term blues scale refers to several different scales with differing numbers of pitches and related characteristics. A blues scale is often formed by the addition of an out-of-key " blue note" to an existing scale, notably the flat fifth additio ...

, C E F G G B C. A hexatonic scale can also be formed by stacking perfect fifths. This results in a

diatonic scale In music theory a diatonic scale is a heptatonic scale, heptatonic (seven-note) scale that includes five whole steps (whole tones) and two half steps (semitones) in each octave, in which the two half steps are separated from each other by eith ...

with one note removed (for example, A C D E F G).

Whole-tone scale

The whole-tone scale is a series of whole tones. It has two non-enharmonically equivalent positions: C D E F G A C and D E F G A B D. It is primarily associated with the French impressionist composer

Claude Debussy Achille Claude Debussy (; 22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918) was a French composer. He is sometimes seen as the first Impressionism in music, Impressionist composer, although he vigorously rejected the term. He was among the most influe ...

, who used it in such pieces of his as ''

Voiles Voiles is a musical composition for solo piano by French composer Claude Debussy that was composed in 1909. It is the second piece in Debussy's first book of Préludes (Debussy), préludes, published in 1910. The title may be translated as either ' ...

'' and ''Le vent dans la plaine'', both from his first book of piano '' Préludes''. This whole-tone scale has appeared occasionally and sporadically in jazz at least since

Bix Beiderbecke Leon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke ( ; March 10, 1903 – August 6, 1931) was an American jazz cornetist, pianist and composer. Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s, a cornet player noted for an inventive lyrical a ...

's impressionistic piano piece ''In a Mist''. Bop pianist

Thelonious Monk Thelonious Sphere Monk ( October 10, 1917 – February 17, 1982) was an American Jazz piano, jazz pianist and composer. He had a unique improvisational style and made numerous contributions to the Jazz standard, standard jazz repertoire, includ ...

often interpolated whole-tone scale flourishes into his improvisations and compositions. :

Mode-based hexatonic scale

The major hexatonic scale is made from a

major scale The major scale (or Ionian mode) is one of the most commonly used musical scales, especially in Western music. It is one of the diatonic scales. Like many musical scales, it is made up of seven notes: the eighth duplicates the first at doubl ...

and removing the seventh note, e.g., C D E F G A C. It can also be made from superimposing mutually exclusive triads, e.g., C E G and D F A. Similarly, the minor hexatonic scale is made from a

minor scale In Classical_music, Western classical music theory, the minor scale refers to three Scale (music), scale patterns – the natural minor scale (or Aeolian mode), the harmonic minor scale, and the melodic minor scale (ascending or descending). ...

by removing the sixth note, e.g., C D E F G B C. Irish and Scottish and many other folk traditions use six-note scales. They can be easily described by the addition of two triads a tone apart, e.g., Am and G in " Shady Grove", or omitting the fourth or sixth from the seven-note diatonic scale.

Augmented scale

The augmented scale, also known in jazz theory as the symmetrical augmented scale,Workman, Josh. Advanced:
Secrets of the symmetrical augmented scale
, ''Guitar Player'' 41.7 (July 2007): p108(2). is so called because it can be thought of as an interlocking combination of two

augmented triad An augmented triad is a chord, made up of two major thirds (an augmented fifth). The term ''augmented triad'' arises from an augmented triad being considered a major chord whose top note (fifth) is raised. When using popular-music symbols, i ...

s an augmented second or minor third apart: C E G and E G B. It may also be called the "minor-third half-step scale", owing to the series of intervals produced. : It made one of its most celebrated early appearances in

Franz Liszt Franz Liszt (22 October 1811 – 31 July 1886) was a Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor and teacher of the Romantic music, Romantic period. With a diverse List of compositions by Franz Liszt, body of work spanning more than six ...

's ''

Faust Symphony ''A Faust Symphony in three character pictures'' (), List of compositions by Franz Liszt (S.1 - S.350), S.108, or simply the "''Faust Symphony''", is a choral symphony written by Hungarians, Hungarian composer Franz Liszt inspired by Johann Wolfga ...

'' (''Eine Faust Symphonie''). Another famous use of the augmented scale (in jazz) is in Oliver Nelson's solo on " Stolen Moments".Advanced: "Secrets of the symmetrical augmented scale". Josh Workman. ''Guitar Player'' 41.7 (July 2007): p108(2). It is also prevalent in 20th century compositions by

Alberto Ginastera Alberto Evaristo Ginastera (; April 11, 1916June 25, 1983) was an Argentine composer of classical music. He is considered to be one of the most important 20th-century classical music, 20th-century classical composers of the Americas. Biography G ...

Almeida Prado Almeida may refer to: People * Almeida (surname) * Almeida Garrett (1799–1854), Portuguese poet, playwright, novelist and politician Places * Almeida, Boyacá, a town and municipality in Colombia * Almeida Municipality, Portugal ** Almeida, Por ...

Béla Bartók Béla Viktor János Bartók (; ; 25 March 1881 – 26 September 1945) was a Hungarian composer, pianist and ethnomusicologist. He is considered one of the most important composers of the 20th century; he and Franz Liszt are regarded as Hunga ...

Milton Babbitt Milton Byron Babbitt (May 10, 1916 – January 29, 2011) was an American composer, music theorist, mathematician, and teacher. He was a Pulitzer Prize and MacArthur Fellowship recipient, recognized for his serial and electronic music. Biography ...

, and

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...

, by saxophonists

John Coltrane John William Coltrane (September 23, 1926 – July 17, 1967) was an American jazz saxophonist, bandleader and composer. He is among the most influential and acclaimed figures in the Jazz#Post-war jazz, history of jazz and 20th-century musi ...

and

Oliver Nelson Oliver Edward Nelson (June 4, 1932 – October 28, 1975) was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, arranger, composer, and bandleader. His 1961 Impulse! album '' The Blues and the Abstract Truth'' (1961) is regarded as one of the most signi ...

in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and bandleader

Michael Brecker Michael Leonard Brecker (March 29, 1949 – January 13, 2007) was an American jazz saxophonist and composer. He was awarded 15 Grammy Awards as a performer and composer, received an honorary doctorate from Berklee College of Music in ...

. Alternating E major and C minor triads form the augmented scale in the opening bars of the Finale in

Shostakovich Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his Symphony No. 1 (Shostakovich), First Symphony in 1926 and thereafter was regarded ...

's Second Piano Trio.

Prometheus scale

The Prometheus scale is so called because of its prominent use in

Alexander Scriabin Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin, scientific transliteration: ''Aleksandr Nikolaevič Skrjabin''; also transliterated variously as Skriabin, Skryabin, and (in French) Scriabine. The composer himselused the French spelling "Scriabine" which was a ...

symphonic poem A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music, usually in a single continuous movement, which illustrates or evokes the content of a poem, short story, novel, painting, landscape, or other (non-musical) source. The German term ( ...

'' Prometheus: The Poem of Fire''. Scriabin himself called this set of pitches, voiced as the simultaneity (in ascending order) C F B E A D the "

mystic chord In music, the mystic chord or Prometheus chord is a six-note synthetic chord and its associated scale (music), scale, or pitch collection; which loosely serves as the harmony, harmonic and melody, melodic basis for some of the later pieces by Russ ...

". Others have referred to it as the "Promethean chord". It may be thought of as C Lydian-Mixolydian. It can also be though as a triad pair: a minor triad and an augmented triad 1/2 step up. For example, A minor triad and B flat augmented triad. :

Blues scale

The blues scale is so named for its use of

blue note Blue Note Records is an American jazz record label now owned by Universal Music Group and operated under Capitol Music Group. Established in 1939 by German-Jewish emigrants Alfred Lion and Max Margulis, it derived its name from the blue no ...

s. Since blue notes are alternate inflections, strictly speaking there can be no one blues scale, but the scale most commonly called "the blues scale" comprises the minor pentatonic scale and an additional flat 5th scale degree: C E F G G B C.Arnold, Bruce (2002). ''The Essentials: Chord Charts, Scales and Lead Patterns for Guitar'', p.8. . :

Tritone scale

The tritone scale, C D E G G() B, is

enharmonic In music, two written notes have enharmonic equivalence if they produce the same pitch but are notated differently. Similarly, written intervals, chords, or key signatures are considered enharmonic if they represent identical pitches that ar ...

ally equivalent to the Petrushka chord; it means a C major chord ( C E G() ) + G major chord's 2nd inversion ( D G B ). : The ''two-semitone tritone scale'', C D D F G A, is a

symmetric scale In music, a music scale can have certain symmetries, namely translational symmetry and inversional or mirror symmetry. The most prominent examples are scales which equally divides the octave. The concept and term appears to have been introduced ...

consisting of a repeated pattern of two semitones followed by a major third now used for improvisation and may substitute for any mode of the

jazz minor scale The jazz minor scale or ascending melodic minor scale is a derivative of the melodic minor scale, except only the ascending form of the scale is used. As the name implies, it is primarily used in jazz, although it may be found in other types of m ...

.Dziuba, Mark (2000). ''The Ultimate Guitar Scale Bible'', p.129. . The scale originated in

Nicolas Slonimsky Nicolas Slonimsky ( – December 25, 1995), born Nikolai Leonidovich Slonimskiy (), was a Russian-born American musicologist, conductor, pianist, and composer. Best known for his writing and musical reference work, he wrote the ''Thesaurus ...

's book ''Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns'' through the "equal division of one

into two parts," creating a tritone, and the "interpolation of two notes," adding two consequent semitones after the two resulting notes. The scale is the fifth mode of Messiaen's list. :

References

External links

A model for hexatonic scales in 96-EDO
, ''96edo.com''.
Detailed Examination of Hexatonic Scales Originating in the Natural Scale/Harmonic SeriesThe origin of triads and musica ficta filling in hexatonic gaps in the diatonic scale
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hexatonic Scale Tritones Musical scales lv:Blūza skaņkārta