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 Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music. ''The Oxford Companion to Music'' describes three interrelated uses of the term "music theory". The first is the " rudiments", that are needed to understand music notation (k ...

, 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 In music, an octave ( la, octavus: eighth) or perfect octave (sometimes called the diapason) is the interval between one musical pitch and another with double its frequency. The octave relationship is a natural phenomenon that has been refer ...

. 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 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 In music theory, a diatonic scale is any heptatonic 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 either two or three whole st ...

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 infl ...

, 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 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 app ...

'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 doub ...

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 Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...

's '' Faust Symphony'' (''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 Argentinian composer of classical music. He is considered to be one of the most important 20th-century classical composers of the Americas. Biography Ginastera was born in Buenos ...

Almeida Prado Almeida may refer to: People *Almeida (surname) *Almeida Garrett (1799–1854), Portuguese poet, playwright, novelist and politician *Laurindo Almeida (1917–1995), Brazilian jazz musician Places *Almeidas Province, province in Colombia *Almeida ...

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 Hu ...

Milton Babbitt Milton Byron Babbitt (May 10, 1916 – January 29, 2011) was an American composer, music theorist, mathematician, and teacher. He is particularly noted for his serial and electronic music. Biography Babbitt was born in Philadelphia to Albert E ...

, and

Arnold Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...

, 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's Second Piano Trio.

Prometheus scale

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

Alexander Scriabin Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (; russian: Александр Николаевич Скрябин ; – ) was a Russian composer and virtuoso pianist. Before 1903, Scriabin was greatly influenced by the music of Frédéric Chopin and composed ...

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 ''T ...

'' 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 Minor may refer to: * Minor (law), a person under the age of certain legal activities. ** A person who has not reached the age of majority * Academic minor, a secondary field of study in undergraduate education Music theory *Minor chord ** Bar ...

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

enharmonic In modern musical notation and tuning, an enharmonic equivalent is a note, interval, or key signature that is equivalent to some other note, interval, or key signature but "spelled", or named differently. The enharmonic spelling of a writte ...

ally 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 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.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 (russian: Никола́й Леони́дович Сло́нимский), was a Russian-born American conductor, author, pianist, composer and lexicographer. ...

'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. 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