When it comes to the world of music, scales are a group of musical notes that are collected in both ascending and descending order, and they are responsible for providing material for musical work, including a combination of both harmony and melody that can be converted into instrumental play. Scales are ordered based on either pitch or pitch class, and their ordering is designed to provide a measure specifically of musical distance. When you have a distance that is between two different successive notes in a single scale, what you have is known as a scale step.

Typically, scales are listed from the lowest to the highest. Scales are octave-repeating when their patterns of notes are the same from one octave to the next. Octave repeating scales are capable of being represented as circular arrangements of pitch classes that are ordered by either increasing or by decreasing pitch class. For example, the increasing scale in C major is C D E F G A B C, but the last C is a full octave higher than the original note. A decreasing scale in C major would appear as C B A G F E D C, but the second C, again, would be an entire octave lower than the original note in the scale.

A single scale is capable of being manifested in a wide variety of different pitch levels. As an example, a scale in C major is capable of being started at middle C or C4, an ascending up an octave to C5, or it can begin at C6 and then ascend an entire octave up to C7.

Scales are capable of being described according to whatever intervals are contained within them, such as with diatonic scales, chromatic scales and whole tone scales. They are based on the number of different pitch classes that are contained within them, in the case of pentatonic scales, hexatonic scales or heptatonic scales, which are five pitch class, six pitch class and seven pitch class containing scales respectively. In prehistoric forms of music you will find ditonic, tritonic and tetratonic scales, which are two pitch class, three pitch class and four pitch class containing scales respectively. In jazz music and modern classical music you will find octatonic scales, which contain eight pitch classes.

Scales are capable of being abstracted from composition or from performance. They are also commonly used in a precompositional manner in order to guide or to limit a particular composition. The explicit instruction in these scales has long been a part of compositional training for several centuries now. One or more scales is capable of being used in a single composition.

Photo Credits: Brian Finifter

Originally posted 2009-09-16 12:16:12. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

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