Talk:Hexatonic scale

Blues notes
The Blues Scale section of this article needs clarification

In particular the talk of the 'flatted fifth's note seems to be in conflict with the Wiki entry for Blues Notes. Also talk of derivation from the major or minor pentatonic scale in both entries needs to be fixed.

Blues Scale:

"...but the scale most commonly called "the blues scale" comprises a flatted seventh blues note, a flatted third blues note, a flatted fifth blues note, and the flatted fifth's note of upward resolution along with other pitches derived from the minor pentatonic scale, C Eb F F# G Bb C."

Blues Notes:

"The flattened fifth is not a "true" blue note-- as we notice the blues scale in any key can be derived from a major pentatonic scale one minor third up. This excludes the flatted fifth. These blue notes are what turns a major scale into the blues scale."

ME


 * One wikipedia article cannot be a valid source for another wikipedia article, nor can a wikipedia article's inconsistency with another wikipedia article be (in and of itself) a valid objection to a wikipedia article. As it happens, the wikipedia article you cite ("Blues notes") errs--assuming you have quoted it accurately. TheScotch 19:14, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

76.172.20.225 15:41, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Derivation versus relationship and Blues Notes:

The existing level of detail about the relationship of the Blues scales to western scales could give the impression that they derive from the western scales historically. I don't believe this is the case. I wonder if anything definitive can be said about the origins of these scales beyond the common appeals to field songs, etc, which really just begs the question since it lacks any information about the ultimate origins of those and is also probably lumping together a number of different traditions. Dbarclaymoore (talk) 00:36, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

My own researches lead me to believe that the "blues scale" is an artificial scale concocted by jazz theorists long after the fact. I don't mean to suggest by this that no one had ever used this particular combination of pitches together before, but rather that they were not considered to form a single scalar entity. The origin of blue notes (or blues notes) themselves is a different matter, one probably better discussed at the "blue notes" article. TheScotch (talk) 08:32, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Forgive my self-taught guitarist ramblings, but I thought that the "blues scale" is basically a pentatonic minor, played over major chords. For example, in the key of C major, the scale is C E- F G B- C. (When writing accidentals in plain ASCII, I use a minus suffix for flats, and a plus suffix for sharps). This scale provides the flattened third and flattened seventh blue notes. The sharpened fourth in the article would arise as a result of using a 2-5-1 chord sequence, so we have an F+ leading note from D major to G major. The 2-5-1 sequence is, in my opinion, more idiomatic of trad jazz and derived forms. In blues that uses plain old 1-4-5, the natural notes to add to the pentatonic are a major second (D) as the fifth of the dominant (G), and a major sixth (A) as the major third of the subdominant (F). So we then have C D E- F G A B-. This is a modal scale based on the western major scale, but I do not know its name. When there is a 1-4-5 structure and a 2-5-1 sequence, then the scale becomes octatonic: C D E- F F+ G A B-. In conclusion, it would seem to be theoretically incorrect to include the blues scale in an article about hexatonic scales, as the root form of the blues scale is pentatonic, and its typical variants are often diatonic or octatonic (numerically). Boynstye
 * First of all, I don't know why on earth you'd use "-" and "+" for flat and sharp accidentals when you could just type "b" or "#", never mind the fact that "-" and "+" mean other things in music theory (e.g. "C-7" chord, "G+" chord). Regardless, no, "C Eb F G Bb C" is the Minor Pentatonic scale, not the Blues scale.  Scales aren't defined by what music you play them over.  The ii-V-I and I-IV-V cadences are irrelevant here.  Every musician I've played with and every printed book I've ever seen on scales defines "The Blues Scale" as a very particular 6-note scale.  Namely a minor pentatonic with an added b5 (or #4; take your pick).  In the key of C, this would be C Eb F Gb G Bb C.  The blues scale is a very particular 6-note scale, and it would be ridiculous to NOT include it on a page about hexatonic scales.  As for "C D Eb F G A Bb C", yes that's a mode of the major scale and it's called the dorian mode, though I have never, EVER heard anybody call the dorian mode some sort of "blues scale"! As a harmonica player I do make use of it in minor blues songs (relative dorian is much easier to work with than relative aeolian/minor), but again it's an entirely different scale from "The Blues Scale".  WillieBlues (talk) 17:30, 2 May 2012 (UTC)

"Major" blues scale
Re: "The corresponding major Blues scale is Eb F Gb G Bb C or, transposing back to C, C D Eb E G A.:

This usage is very circumscribed and idiosyncratic, as well as logically dubious: The oscillation between the minor and major third makes it a very minor-ish sort of "major".TheScotch (talk) 08:57, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Spelling of Scales
The use of sharps, which you explain as "ascending scales use sharps" is quite wrong. Correct usage is to denote each note according to its function and to scrupulously avoid use of enharmonic equivalents even at the expense of readability - Chopin's manuscripts, for example, at least as published, carry this to an extreme level.

Note that for instruments without fixed pitches, D# and Eb, for example, are distinct notes and writing one rather than the other will produce a different result when played by expert performers in settings that lack fixed pitch instruments (a string quartet for example)

In the major Blues scale the the third note is quite clearly a minor third not an augmented second and needs to be notated as such (ie with a flat). Please change this back.

BTW, I just learned that sharps and flats should be entered using ♯ and ♭. I will help fix this up, but would like to get agreement of spelling scales correctly first.

(Sorry - I am signing belatedly) Dbarclaymoore 03:12, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * [NEW COMMENT: previous one was unsigned, so does not terminate clearly:] On the sharps and flats notation issue, there seems to be a bit of uncertainty here. While the signs you propose do look a bit closer to the real ones (although I would question whether the sharp signs are truly accurate), the disadvantage of these (according to a post on another Talk page) is that some browsers may not be able to read them clearly and may render them as question marks, little boxes, or gobble-de-gook of some kind.  On the other hand, "#" and "b", while only approximate, are close enough to be perfectly understandable in context, and everyone would be able to read those characters; and that was what the other commentator actually recommended doing.


 * So it seems a bit uncertain, as far as I've seen, which way is best for notating sharps and flats. M.J.E. 23:04, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Piston ("Harmony", WW Norton) makes it clear (page 11 just before the Excercises) that one should not use enharmonic equivalents to spell notes saying, by way of example, that in the key of G the seventh degree is F# and not Gb. This is a standard textbook that I think it is reasonable to accept as an authority.

On the sharp/flat notation, note that I did not use the unicode characters but the markup (though this is only evident when you edit this page). Its not clear to me either that the recommendation in the style guide is a good one. Its claimed the markup works everywhere but I have not confirmed that and have my doubts. I raised it simply because I had entered something that appeared to vary from the style guidleline.

Dbarclaymoore 03:12, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Re: "Piston ("Harmony", WW Norton) makes it clear (page 11 just before the Excercises) that one should not use enharmonic equivalents to spell notes saying, by way of example, that in the key of G the seventh degree is F# and not Gb.":


 * There are two reasons this is spelled as F#, not Gb: The first need not concern us here, but for the record, it's because these spellings denote different pitches. In Pythagorean tuning F# is sharper than Gb. The other reason is that the scale already has some kind of G. A diatonic scale requires all seven letters because we have precisely seven letters only in order to name the notes of the diatonic scale. Chromatic pitches, on the other hand, are spelled according to how they resolve. Ascending chromatic pitches, resolving upward, are spelled as sharps (or raised notes, anyway), and descending chromatic pitches, resolving downward, are spelled as flats (or lowered notes). This is very elemental. TheScotch 06:55, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

The whole tone scale.
I would have agreed with the assertion that the use of the whole tone scale was introduced by Debussy. Flipping through Schoenberg's "Theory of Harmony" I see some different ideas and that he at least at one time (i.e. while writing this book - it says he did not revise this chapter later) felt that the scale appeared in Liszt's Don Juan Phantasie. While I know I have heard that piece while driving I cannot atest to its use there myself, so I mention this in case anyone wants to research into it. Dbarclaymoore 03:12, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * The article doesn't say Debussy "introduced" the scale; it says it is "primarily asssociated" with Debussy. It happens to be very well known that (long before Liszt, of course) Mozart used the scale--in an atypical context. The use of the scale in jazz derives from Debussy's use of it.


 * In any case, this sort of discussion (and your expansion of the whole-tone scale section) are best reserved for the "Whole tone scale" article itself. Duplicating that material at length here is redundant. This article's raison d'etre is only to provide a hexatonic overview. TheScotch 07:03, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Etymology
Re: "(Latin: Hexa = 6)":

I've removed this interpolation for several reasons:

1) The term hexatonic derives from Greek, not Latin.

2) Even so, hexa is a combining form; hex is the Greek word for six.

3) Small numbers should be spelled out. (Six, not 6.)

4) Encyclopedia entries should use full sentences, not cryptic shorthand.

Notice that our names for chords and pitch sets by cardinality derive from Greek, whereas our names for the intervallic content of chords derive from Latin: We speak of "tertian chords", "quartal chords", and so on. Since this is a distinction worth preserving, it might be a good idea to point this out in some wikipedia article, but I'm not convinced that this particular article is the proper place. TheScotch 08:29, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Reason for recent changes I made, including reverting other recent changes.
I restored the Prometheus scale to main list, instead of it being illogically relegated, alone, to "Others". The reason cited for doing this was that it wasn't mentioned in the introduction. While I take the point, it seemed to me that a better solution to this anomaly was to mention it in the introduction (which I did), rather than to create an "Others" category which has only one entry. (I also put it before the Blues scale, because it seemed best placed next to the other more "classical" types of scales.)

I restored "for example" in the sample Prometheus scale, to forestall the possibility that someone may think the Prometheus scale can only begin on C. Yes, most of us probably already know that - but I think, as a general practice, when citing a scale in a particular key, it's a good idea to indicate that that is just one example of it, rather than making it seem as if C is the only possible or natural instance of it.

I restored the fuller description of whole-tone scale which was recently removed (with a few changes such as removing the "tonic" mention - I agree that this is not the best word to use in the whole-tone scale). The cut-down version resulting from the recent removal of this description didn't leave it clear to those who don't know what the whole-tone scale is what it is exactly.

I also retored the jazz applications of the whole-tone scale. It seems to me they reasonably belong here, at that level of detail. It may be debatable whether this short section would be better placed in the whole-tone scale article - but it isn't there. (Use in jazz is mentioned there, but not the specific point in the section I just restored.) M.J.E. 23:11, 30 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Re: "While I take the point, it seemed to me that a better solution to this anomaly was to mention it [the Promethius] in the introduction (which I did), rather than to create an "Others" category which has only one entry.":


 * This of course is the other obvious solution to the problem, but are we sure the Promethius scale is famous enough? After all, it's only associated with one work of one composer. If it is famous enough, does this mean every hexatonic scale that gets added to the article will have to be added to the list of "famous examples"? TheScotch 07:12, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

"Re: "I restored "for example" in the sample Prometheus scale, to forestall the possibility that someone may think the Prometheus scale can only begin on C.":

The article has to be consistent. If "for example" is used here, it must be used in connection with the other scales as well. To my ear it's verbose. TheScotch 07:16, 1 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Re: "(Use in jazz is mentioned there, but not the specific point in the section I just restored.)"


 * This "specific point" is not appropriate for an overview. TheScotch 07:19, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Prometheus "scale"
Scriabin himself called this sonority the "mystic chord", by which name it is much more commonly known. It also called (by others) the "Promethean chord". Although Scriabin did sometimes horizontalize, so to speak, the sonority, it is primarily considered a chord, not a scale, and as such I'm not sure it belongs in this article at all. TheScotch (talk) 14:22, 23 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Vincent Persichetti's "Twentieth-Century Harmony" names the Prometheus scale, and gives the example C D E F# A Bb C, which is consistent with the usage in this article. Even if Persichetti hadn't named it, a very strong argument can be made that it is a meaningful scale, just as much as is the whole-tone scale.


 * Scriabin used this scale, and also others, both vertically and horizontally, and the distinction between a complex chord and a scale cannot be maintained with strictness. Most composers - certainly  including Scriabin in his use of various scales - mix horizontal and vertical combinations in almost all permutations, and it would be impossible to separate them out consistently, so that one passage is using a set of notes as a "scale", but another is not.


 * It is quite possible to find passages in "Prometheus" and some other pieces where, for a few bars at least, the total melodic and harmonic material (whether used vertically or horizontally) is derived from a scale, including occasionally the Prometheus scale, although the actual chords used at any given time may be only a subset of the total number of notes in the scale. I think it is a reasonable use of the concept of a scale to allow it to cover the total range of notes used in a passage.  By this criterion, the Prometheus scale is just as valid a scale as the whole-tone scale, for example. M.J.E. (talk) 07:49, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

It's not a question of "validity"; it's a question of classification (according to how it's--as I said--primarily known). For that matter, there remains the question concerning the extent of its use--especially in light of these remarks (from the article as it currently reads): ''It is likely that Scriabin was the first composer ever to use this scale for whole passages of music - as against its accidental transient occurrence resulting from passing chromatic harmony, which did occur earlier in various composers' music, even occasionally as early as Beethoven. Probably 90 percent or more of Prometheus is composed in the Prometheus scale, at one pitch or another (the transposition of the scale at any given time usually changing every few bars).''

At the very least the quoted passage needs work: "Ever" here is clearly redundant. What is a "whole passage of music"? "As against" is awkward. The reference to "accidental occurrences" seems to me superfluous. "Probably" and following sounds like POV. TheScotch (talk) 08:30, 28 December 2007 (UTC)

Hexatonic Scale?
Why is this the name of the article when it is much more well known as the blues scale.--74.138.83.10 (talk) 00:19, 2 February 2008 (UTC)


 * A hexatonic scale is any six-note scale. One six-note scale in particular is "known as the blues scale". As the article points out, others (different six-note scales) are known as the augmented scale, the whole-tone scale, and the Prometheus scale. Others still, known by different names, known but not named, or not very "well known", the article does not mention. TheScotch (talk) 08:07, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

I think the blues scale is much much more common to be a little article at the bottom of the Hexatonic scale (what???) page. Perhaps we could make a page for the blues scale. It has a long history.--74.138.83.10 (talk) 02:00, 3 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Neither the Grove Dictionary of Music nor the Grove Dictionary of Jazz has an article devoted to "the blues scale", but the Grove Dictionary of Jazz does include this statement: "The blues scale in jazz [is] in essence merely the diatonic scale to which inflected third, fifth, and seventh degrees may be added to impart a blues flavor (ex.2)." Its "ex. 2" shows a C major scale (C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C) in whole-notes with three parenthetical sets of pitches with smaller filled-in note-heads separated by diagonal lines (presumably to suggest portamento) interpolated: (D D# E), (F F# G), and (A A# B). The clear implication here is that "the blues scale" is actually a large set of possible combinations of diatonic notes, blue notes, microtonal inflections, and portamento effects. TheScotch (talk) 07:16, 3 February 2008 (UTC)

Scottish Hexatonics?
No mention of Scottish scales? Traditional Scottish music makes frequent use of hexatonic scales (or "gapped scales"), particularly the Major/Mixolydian and Dorian/Minor hexatonics. There is a good website about it here: http://www.campin.me.uk/Music/Modes/

It's worth a section anyway. 93.97.20.228 (talk) 15:54, 2 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The "me.uk" domain is for personal websites. This wouldn't be considered a scholarly source for such material. Are there better sources? Does Grove have anything? Feline Hymnic (talk) 20:52, 3 June 2009 (UTC)


 * The naming convention apparently comes from Campbell & Collinson - "Hebridean Folksongs", which might have some further details. It seems these scales have never had any official names, and the convention is to name them by what diatonic scales they could be made into (for instance, the Major/Mixolydian hexatonic is either scale with the 7th degree removed). I've no idea if it's in Grove. 93.97.20.228 (talk) 05:46, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

NPOV dispute (Intro)
The first paragraph is not written in the style of a neutral encyclopedia. Specifically,

"This scale is a very large part of the aural history of music and it has been ignored by the cloth eared for centuries. Unfortunately it is the cloth eared who write articles on arcana and special effects to cover up their ignorance of the mechanics of real music. I encourage anyone who is actually interested in six note scales to look at a book of folk tunes and observe how many omit either the fourth or the sixth from the seven note diatonic scale and are therefore hexatonic in character,"

is inappropriate for obvious reasons. Either the original author (or somebody else who is also knowledgeable about the subject matter) should rewrite it in a more neutral tone. Also, Wikipedia articles are not written in the first person.

Jeparie (talk) 22:32, 4 December 2015 (UTC)


 * I agree. The whole paragraph --
 * The scales listed here are mostly artificial constructions and do not form the basis of any lyrical tunes which is why none have been proposed below. However 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. ie Am and G as in tunes like Shady Grove. This scale is a very large part of the aural history of music and it has been ignored by the cloth eared for centuries. Unfortunately it is the cloth eared who write articles on arcana and special effects to cover up their ignorance of the mechanics of real music. I encourage anyone who is actually interested in six note scales to look at a book of folk tunes and observe how many omit either the fourth or the sixth from the seven note diatonic scale and are therefore hexatonic in character.
 * is in the nature of a first-person comment (and an unattributed one at that) and is therefore not an appropriate addition to an encyclopedia article (at least, not in the form in which it has been submitted). I propose that the paragraph in question be moved here in order to keep these observations on record until such time as the unidentified original author, or someone else, can rework them in a more suitable form, as suggested by Jeparie above. -- Picapica (talk) 12:54, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

A stacking of fifths does not result in a diatonic scale with one note removed.
“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).“

Maybe I’m missing something here, but this statement does not make sense to me. The only way a stacking of fifths would yield these six pitches is if you began the stacking on F. And this yields six pitches only if you end the stacking of fifths at an arbitrary point. So why would the stacking of fifths stop at E, and not include B? Just so you end up with sex pitches, and not seven pitches? In other words, the stacking of fifths should not result in a diatonic scale with one note removed. Mbase1235 (talk) 13:34, 31 December 2019 (UTC)


 * Wow. I came here to type exactly the same point. The example given isn't a sequence made by stacking up fifths. The A to the E is a fifth, but C to F isn't and neither is D to G. Okay, C to G is a fifth, but then where does the F come from? There's no B-flat below the F that makes the F the upper note of a fifth. Let's trying STARTING it on F (because F MUST be the lowest note since there's no B-flat): okay, that gives us F, C, G, D, A, E, but then what makes no sense is typing them in the order "A C D E F G". The possible explanation "all contained in the same octave" doesn't make sense because "F G A C D E" would ALSO nest it all within one octave while starting on the note whos fifth-below (B-flat) is excluded and ending on the note whose fifth-above (B-natural) is excluded.


 * Finally, although this is not within the scope of an article on Hexatonic scales, the question is begged "Why stop creating notes when you have only created six (or seven) of them?" One you have decided "Our music is going to include the notes that are 3/2 of the first set of octave-spaced notes we have created", then you do not have a "Group" (which is a Set, and an Operation, such that the Operation applied to ANY member of the Set has an output already within the set). The Set that includes 12 notes not only has ONE Operation that makes it into a Group, but it has infinitely many, because you can choose ANY INTERVAL as the Operation (say, "the fifth above", "the augmented octave above", "two octaves above") and apply that Operation to any member of the Set, and the output will also be a member of the Set. This of course requires the obligatory statement that if you multiply a "C" frequency by 3/2 until you've done that 12 times (the last result being the 13th frequency in this series) you will come to a frequency that is hideously out of tune with a "C" note obtained by repeatedly multiplying the starting "C" frequency by 2 several times. So, to make the fifths "come out even" with the octaves, there's always some fudging. But, basically, you can approximate everything decently with 12 notes. Not 11. If your universe of notes contains octaves for every note and fifths for only SOME notes, then there are missing notes and that's just all there is to say on that subject. The task for theorists is to explain why early music was willing to use only seven notes, and was unwilling to use the remaining five notes, and that explanation exists nowhere.2600:1700:6759:B000:F9C8:CB18:D28B:C1EA (talk) 21:45, 1 July 2023 (UTC)Christopher L. Simpson