hey, welcome to 12tone! a while back I did an experiment where I challenged myself to
take a random scale that no one had ever used before and analyze it to see what it was like.
the results were interesting, and I had a lot of fun doing it, so I figured it'd be
cool to try again and see what we find with another random scale challenge.
let's do this!
or, first, let's review the rules.
to make sure the scale is actually not already in use, I'm going to be relying on one of
my favorite websites, Ian Ring's A Study Of Scales, where Ring has compiled every possible
arrangement of the 12 standard notes along with some interesting facts and, most importantly,
their name if they have one.
so what I'm doing is picking a root, grabbing six other notes completely at random, then
putting it all together into a 7-note scale and checking it on Ring's site.
if the scale already has a name there, I'll throw it out and make a new one.
once I find one without a name, I can get to analyzing, which brings me to the scale
we'll be working with today: (bang)
awesome.
ok, first impressions: we've got a perfect 5th! last time we had to deal with the fact
that our scale didn't really have a complete I chord, which made it very hard to write
good progressions in, but here we have not only a perfect 5th but also, effectively,
a major 3rd, which means we've got ourselves a major scale! not the major scale, obviously,
that one already has a name, but still, we're off to a pretty good start.
the next step is melodic features.
there's three things that stand out to me here.
the first is this leap between the 4th and 5th notes: generally speaking, having a leap
like this is going to sound jarring: we're used to scales with notes that are either
a half step or whole step apart, so seeing a minor 3rd makes it feel a bit alien.
here, though, I don't think that has much of an effect: check out what happens when
we just walk up and down the scale.
(bang) the leap is barely noticeable, and it feels perfectly natural, at least to my
ear.
so why?
well, I think this has to do with where that leap is positioned: it's technically between
the 4th and the 5th, but the 4th note is actually a major 3rd above the root, so we're really
just leaping from 3 to 5, which is a feature of one of the most famously pleasant scales
in all of Western music: the major pentatonic.
(bang) this is where we take the major scale and cut out all the dissonant notes, leaving
us with just a nice, calm, relaxing melody that couldn't sound harsh if it tried, and
if we look at the bottom part of our new scale, we see that it looks quite a lot like the
major pentatonic.
we've got a major 2nd, a major 3rd, and a perfect 5th, and that association helps smooth
over the impact of this rogue leap.
it's not exactly like the major pentatonic, though, because of this note here.
it sits between our root and our major 2nd, and it means the scale has two half-steps
in a row, which is pretty unusual.
well, unusual in the music we're used to: it's pretty common in these sorts of random
scales.
again, though, what matters is how it's positioned, and doing it right at the beginning adds,
I think, a sense of weight to the scale, like it takes time to get started.
if we want to walk from our root to our 3rd, for instance, we have to pass through two
other notes in order to get there, and if we're trying to walk back down to the root
this note interrupts that.
it's like a roadblock, complicating the melodic path in the bottom of the scale.
the last thing I want to look at, though, is in the top half of the scale.
or, rather, it is the top half: we were talking about how the bottom part looked a lot like
a major scale, but if we ignore that and just look from the 5th up: (bang) it's natural
minor.
it's exactly the same.
if you've seen our video on tetrachords, you know that traditionally, theorists would often
break up scales into top and bottom parts, and here we see why: the emotional landscape
of the bottom is completely contradicted by the top, giving the scale a sort of internal
tension where one part tells a different story from the other.
it's hard to read, which makes it interesting to write with.
moving on, let's talk harmony.
like I said in the beginning, the scale manages to give us a proper I chord, which is fantastic.
we can also find a pair of minor chords: there's V minor, which means we can use that classic
I major-V minor vamp that you see so often in blues rock stuff like Hey Bulldog, and
bII minor, which gives us access to a more advanced technique called a slide.
this is where you move back and forth between a major and a minor chord that share the same
3rd. in this case, we have E major and F minor, both of which contain this Ab. or, ok, technically
E major contains a G#, but those are two different names for the same thing so whatever.
point is, the slide is a fairly distant, dramatic motion, and I think it's a fairly signature
sound for this scale so if I was trying to write a chord progression, I'd probably lean
pretty heavily on it.
the rest of the chords aren't quite as interesting, but if we look closely we can build a fully
diminished 7th chord. it's a little awkward, though: the cool thing about a diminished
7th is its ability to resolve to any chord whose root is a half-step above any note in
the diminished 7th, but in this case we've only got a couple consonant chords in the
scale and none of them are really in a great position to be resolved to.
we can do what's called a common-tone resolution, where the diminished 7th resolves to a chord
whose root is actually a part of it, but those work better when the target chord is major,
and that's not an option here either.
all in all, I think this diminished 7th is a bit wasted here, but maybe that's just my
lack of imagination.
if you can find something cool to do with it I'd love to hear it.
let's move on to scale function, though, 'cause this is a good one.
we said before that our I chord is major, but the scale has a minor 7th, which means
the entire I chord is actually dominant, making this what's called a dominant scale which,
interestingly, the scale in the last video was too.
what are the odds?
well, if I'm doing my math correctly the odds of getting a dominant scale are about 27%,
so getting one twice in a row is roughly a 7% chance.
but that's not the point.
the point is, dominant scales are great.
basically, they're a special kind of chord scale, which is a scale that you use temporarily
while playing over a specific chord.
dominant scales are the ones you use over dominant 7th chords, and since dominant 7ths
are the primary drivers of motion in traditional western harmony, dominant scales are the place
where we get to have the most fun.
there's really dark, dissonant dominant scales like altered (bang) and bright, happy ones
like lydian dominant.
(bang) personally, I think our new scale sits somewhere in the middle: It's got some consonant
parts, like the major 2nd and perfect 5th, and some dissonant ones like the minor 2nd
and minor 6th, which makes it a good compromise if you don't want to push too hard in either
direction.
the last thing we need to do before we give this scale a name is take it for a test drive.
I don't often include compositions in these videos 'cause you can just look those up,
but since as far as I know no one's ever used this scale, I figured I'd write a short piece
just to see what it could do: (bang) nothing super fancy, but I tried to emphasize those
harmonic relationships I was talking about earlier.
I think it's a really versatile scale, though, which brings me to the final step: naming
it.
I mean, it's not unused any more, so we're gonna have to call it something.
last time I went with the Elephant Scale after my favorite animal, so this time I'll continue
the theme and call this one the Gummy Bear Scale.
it feels like it fits.
before we go, though, last time I did this, I asked y'all to send me your own compositions,
and you did not disappoint.
I got over 30 pieces, which I collected over on twitter, and every single one was amazing.
so this time, I'm gonna do the same thing: I'll make a master thread on my twitter, @12tonevideos,
and if you send me a composition with this scale in a shareable format I'll add it.
simple as that.
I can't wait to hear what you come up with.
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