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Scale Mappings

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2020 12:58 am
by tulamide
Hi guys,

I'm looking for mappings of scales. I'll explain what I mean by this below. My knowledge of scales is insufficient, so I'm hoping for another musician with music theory background to step in and help!

The major scale can be notated, starting from the key, as follows:
+2 +2 +1 +2 +2 +2 +1
(e.g. F Major = F + 2 = G + 2 = A + 1 = A# + 2 = C + 2 = D + 2 = E + 1 = F)

The minor scale:
+2 +1 +2 +2 +1 +2 +2

Those numbers are what I'm looking for. If you know a scale, please let me know of the rule.

Re: Scale Mappings

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2020 2:38 am
by RJHollins
Don't know if this of interest ... but we also have 'Modes', they are:

Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian and Locrian

link: https://www.classicfm.com/discover-musi ... cal-modes/

another possible useful link:
https://hellomusictheory.com/learn/musi ... ers-guide/

Re: Scale Mappings

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2020 2:11 pm
by martinvicanek
There is more than one minor scale, refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_scale.
In Jazz there is a multitude of other scales besides major, minor, and their modes: bebop scales, blues scales, pentatonic scales, diminished scale, wholetone scale, altered scales. Refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jazz_scale. Not all scales have seven notes, so there is no simple mapping to a major scale, say. Which scale you choose at a given time depends on the harmonic progression.

Re: Scale Mappings

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2020 2:41 pm
by tulamide
martinvicanek wrote:Not all scales have seven notes, so there is no simple mapping to a major scale, say.
I'm aware of that fact (e.g. Chromatic = 12 notes). I just asked for the status of a scale, not of a progression. But maybe there's not enough musicians on this forum that understand it. Instead of my notation with numbers you also often get a notation of W and H for whole step and half step, so that my major example would read
W-W-H-W-W-W-H

It doesn't matter, which one is used, because they all describe the scale steps. And those are the ones I'm interested in.

Re: Scale Mappings

PostPosted: Wed May 27, 2020 6:53 pm
by wlangfor@uoguelph.ca
Hmm, I made something for this, I'll try and find it.