music Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspe ...

and music theory, 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 versio ...

per octave. 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'' s ...

, 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 scale Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the African- ...

, C E F G G B C. A hexatonic scale can also be formed by stacking perfect fifths. This results in a diatonic scale 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, who used it in such pieces of his as '' Voiles'' 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's impressionistic piano piece ''In a Mist''. Bop pianist

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

often interpolated whole-tone scale flourishes into his improvisations and compositions. Whole tone scale on C

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 double ...

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 music theory, the minor scale is three scale patterns – the natural minor scale (or Aeolian mode), the harmonic minor scale, and the melodic minor scale (ascending or descending) – rather than just two as with the major scale, which ...

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 Augment or augmentation may refer to: Language * Augment (Indo-European), a syllable added to the beginning of the word in certain Indo-European languages *Augment (Bantu languages), a morpheme that is prefixed to the noun class prefix of nouns ...

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. Augmented scale

It made one of its most celebrated early appearances in Franz Liszt's ''

Faust Symphony ''A Faust Symphony in three character pictures'' (german: Eine Faust-Symphonie in drei Charakterbildern), S.108, or simply the "''Faust Symphony''", is a choral symphony written by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Go ...

'' (''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, Almeida Prado, Béla Bartók, Milton Babbitt, and Arnold Schoenberg, 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 history of jazz and 20th-century music. Born and raise ...

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 signifi ...

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 both performer and composer. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Berklee College of M ...

. 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 First Symphony in 1926 and was regarded throughout his life as a major compo ...

's Second Piano Trio.

Prometheus scale

The Prometheus scale is so called because of its prominent use in Alexander Scriabin's symphonic poem '' 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, or pitch collection; which loosely serves as the harmonic and melodic basis for some of the later pieces by Russian composer Alexander Scriabi ...

". Others have referred to it as the "Promethean chord". It may be thought of as C Lydian b7 without the 5th degree. Prometheus scale on C

Blues scale

The blues scale is so named for its use of

blue note In jazz and blues, a blue note is a note that—for expressive purposes—is sung or played at a slightly different pitch from standard. Typically the alteration is between a quartertone and a semitone, but this varies depending on the musical c ...

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. . Blues scale common

Tritone scale

The tritone scale, C D E G G() B, is enharmonically equivalent to the

Petrushka chord The Petrushka chord is a recurring polytonal device used in Igor Stravinsky's ballet '' Petrushka'' and in later music. These two major triads, C major and F major – a tritone apart – clash, "horribly with each other", when sounded together ...

; it means a C major chord ( C E G() ) + G major chord's 2nd inversion ( D G B ). Tritone scale on C (extra)

The ''two-semitone tritone scale'', C D D F G A, is a

symmetric scale In music, a symmetric scale is a music scale which equally divides the octave. The concept and term appears to have been introduced by Joseph Schillinger and further developed by Nicolas Slonimsky as part of his famous ''Thesaurus of Scales and M ...

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 Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major f ...

.Dziuba, Mark (2000). ''The Ultimate Guitar Scale Bible'', p.129. . The scale originated in Nicolas Slonimsky's book ''Thesaurus of Scales and Melodic Patterns'' through the "equal division of one octave 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. Two-semitone tritone scale on C (1)

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