Exotic Scales


Karnatic Etudes

Two big twentieth century studies of Carnatic scales by Western composers are now available in full on YouTube. If nothing else, I think we Western musicians can benefit from hearing these scales "in our own accent" rather than solely in the context of South Indian music. They also prove that these "exotic" scales can make excellent music in a Western style, in case that still needs to be proved to anyone.

Some Pentatonic Major 7 Vocabulary

I've been playing with Common b6 Pentatonic from my previous post over the past view days and thought it would be worth noting some applications of this and the Hungarian Minor Pentatonic to major 7 chords.

Common Pentatonic b6 Combinations

Last night in the practice room I revisited this post about a mildly altered pentatonic so this morning I decided to pull out some more possibilities for combining it with familiar things.

Heptatonic Sevenths and Triads Infodump

I'm told many people enjoy it when I can't sleep and do one of these "here's some data, you sort it out" posts. If you're one of those people, this is your lucky day.

More Tales of MiP, MaP, AmP and AlP

I realise this thread of posts is probably getting a bit old but I've done a bit more tidying up of my (initially flippant) project around "Hungarian pentatonics" and have some moderately nice initial results.

Some Quick MiP Combos

Here are a few more things to combine with Hungarian Minor Pentatonic, a.k.a. MiP (see also here and here) to make interesting sounds that are easy to find. Nothing new here compared with the earlier posts, just easier ways to find the same notes.

Yet More Scales from Hungarian Altered Pentatonic

In this final instalment, I'll list out some applications of the Hungarian Altered Pentatonic -- see Part I and Part II for similar stuff, and this post for an explanation of what's going on, or just dive in.

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.

Even More Scales from the Hungarian Minor Pentatonic

After experimenting with my new friends the Hungarian Pentatonics yesterday, I decided to look a bit more carefully at what they can do for us. Today I started with what I'm calling the Hungarian Minor Pentatonic: 1 b3 #4 5 b7.

Pentatonic Ruminations on (Supposedly) Hungarian Scales

Following up on the previous post, I spent a bit of time today with Harmonic Minor #4, aka Hungarian Minor, aka Simhendramadhyamam. Here's some stuff I found.