Even More Scales from Hungarian Major Pentatonic

This post is a continuation of this one and this one. It's probably worth starting with those first. This time we find all the ways to expand Hungarian Major Pentatonic (1 3 #4 5 7) to a seven-note scale.

Here are the boxes:

and here's the relevant table from Spectral Analysis:

Again I'll re-write this with more familiar scale names and organised by interval composition. I'm going to skip the major scale because I assume we all know that already, and the point here is to discover new sounds. But it's worth noticing that it's there: Hungarian Major Pentatonic (1 3 #4 5 7) is of course a subset of Lydian (1 2 3 #4 5 6 7). I'll skip Harmonic Minor too, for the same reason.

Containing one minor third:

• Sulini = 4 MaP + b3 & 5 [Chitrambari = 1 MaP + 2 & b7]
• Senavati = b2 MaP + b3 & 5 [Latangi = 1 MaP + 2 & b5]
• Superaugmented = 7 MaP + 1 & #5 [Gamanashrama = 1 MaP + b2 & 6]

Containing two minor thirds:

• Gayakapriya = b2 MaP + 3 & 6 [Dhatuvardani = 1 MaP + #2 & b6]
• Hungarian Minor = b6 MaP + #4 & 7 [Rasikapriya = 1 MaP + #2 & b7]
• Kamavardani = 1 MaP + b2 & b6

Containing a major third:

• Navaneetam #5 = 2 MaP + 1 & b7 [1d + 3maj = 1 MaP + #5 & #6]
• 1maj + b2maj + 2 = b2 MaP + 2 & 3 [1maj + 7maj + b2 = 1 MaP + b2 & b3]
• 1maj + b2maj = b2 MaP + #2 & 3 [1maj + 7maj = 1 MaP + 2 & b3]

Some things to notice. First, there's no "Hungarian Major" scale in the list; there are a few scales that get that name but none of the ones I know of come from the Hungarian Major Pentatonic.

Second, a few of these also contain the Hungarian Minor Pentatonic: Gayakapriya, Hungarian Minor, Kamavardani and those weird ones with the numerical names (we're going to need new names for them -- the first of them is going to come up in the next instalment too).

I'm also pleased to see Superaugmented make an appearance -- I felt like this sound ought to belong to one of these families but hadn't spotted it until I cranked out the analysis. I've been playing this scale quite a lot lately.

If you only have MaP to play with, the only seven-note scale you can make is Apeliotean, which is too exotic to make it onto the lists above. Still, there might be interesting things here. Mode III (1 MaP + 5 MaP) is easy to find and contains a Maj 7 arpeggio, as does Mode I (1 MaP + 4 MaP). This suggests we can use these three (1 MaP + either 4 MaP or 5 MaP) to create different sounds on a Maj 7; but they might be pretty far out.

Mode II (b2 MaP + b6 MaP) and Mode VII (b2 MaP + b5 MaP) have the same relationship, just bumped up a semitone. Both create very ambiguous suspended sounds that might work in many situations.

Modes IV (b5 MaP + 7 MaP), V (4 MaP + b7 MaP) and VI (b3 MaP and b6 MaP) have different relationships. Think of Mode IV as Mode III shifted down a semitone, and Mode V as Mode III shifted down a tone. I would maybe try looking at Mode VI as another variation on Mode II.

But these scales are all very far away from what you usually hear, especially on relatively normal-sounding harmonies. Much experimentation might be needed to find sounds you can use.