Musical Scales & How Octatonics Changed my Life!

“Without craftsmanship, inspiration is a mere reed shaken in the wind”

— JOHANNES BRAHMS

For me, classical music for years consisted of musical scales of 7 notes.  The specific notes depended on whether the scale was in a Major or Minor mode.

In order to create more interesting experiences composers would modulate from one scale to another and also switch within a composition from major to minor mode as and when desirable.

It was only when learning more about the compositions of early 20th century composers like Stravinsky and Bartok that I became aware of scales that were not based on 7 notes.  Earlier composers had already played around with different scales as well but rarely for entire compositions.

Needless to say I found it impossible not to try my hand at different scales and for example composed a piece for piano in what I thought could be in one of the many styles that Stravinsky used based on a 5 note scale, also known as the Pentatonic Scale.  I got quite enthusiastic about trying different scales and even composed a piece where the scale stretched out over 2 octaves before it repeated itself.

The 5 note scale that is best known is based on using only the black notes on the piano:

What is fascinating is that each of these possible 8 note scales is quite “similar” to a number of major and minor 7 note scales.  Instead of calling them Major or Minor I for fun used the term “Manor”.  If you want to end such an 8 note scale on a leading note (“Leitton” in German) you get 4 possible “Manor” modes.

In a similar fashion you get the other 2 possible 8 note scales that “behave” in the same manner, even though using different notes:

Below is what I call the Octo 3 scale:

I enjoyed composing 2 piano pieces where all 3 of these scales come into use, hopefully without the listener even noticing it.

Because there are so many half note steps (4 versus 2 in the 7 note scale) you get so many more options to create interesting harmonies.  For example the first and the fourth chords (marked with an asterix) shown below combine very nicely to create an interesting combination (marked as Combo Chords):

You get 4 sets of these in each of the 3 possible 8 note scales, creating a fascinating “Omnibus” progression using all the 8 note scales.  I have indicated each place I switch to a different Octo scale.

After coming up with this set of chords I wondered what it would sound like using arpeggios and created a short piano piece that could be played with one hand.  I liked what it sounded like but when I showed it to my tutor he said “and what are you going to do with it” clearly not being impressed with something that only uses one hand on the piano.  I still liked it and didn’t want to banish it into my digital wastebasket and kept it, calling this piece the One-handed Octogenarian!  Only a few years to go for me!

By the way, I tried to match up the different Octo scale chords in each of the 3 possible variations and they all can sound OK irrespective which one comes after the other.  In one case the change from one scale to the other was more acceptable to my ear after I had brought down the chord in the new scale by an octave.

Another possible chord combination works also very well:

Of course there is no necessity to try to go sort of seamlessly from one octo scale to another but it is fun to see how that turns out.  One of my Musing . . . piano pieces makes a change from octo 3 to octo 1 in the repetition almost sound like a modulation (well to me, at least!).

A few more examples to whet your appetite.  Some of the endings sound like a cadence, don’t they? 

Something I would still have to learn is when to apply what harmonic options in my compositions, since I still will prefer to start with melodic ideas and will want to create complimentary melodic ideas when possible.  Once I would have landed up with them then how to select the best octo chord options to bring out the “sound” better?  Time will tell.  I did write one piece starting with the chords and then adding the melodic aspects to it later.  It was fun to do this as well.

So the question is why is this more appealing than trying to write like Bach or Schubert or Mahler?  Well for one reason my tutor won’t be able to tell me every time I mess up in the way I jump into new chords breaking lots of important rules.  I hate it that he is always right! More seriously, I have not come across music written using octatonic scales that sounded the way I like to write music.  The focus seems to be much more on dissonances and in fitting in with the times of those days, where music had to sound rather difficult if not impossible.  I do want to explore the use of dissonances in octatonic scales and will do so.  Stay tuned in any case, as all of this is a lot of fun!

That is all for now.  I plan look at 9 note scales as well, hopefully before I reach that age with the 9 in the first digit.  Time will tell.  I hope to document when new ideas come into being on this subject for me.