I know that you are already familiar with most of these scales but I am going to go over them very briefly in order to cover ever little aspect that we might need in the future.
Scales
It is unusual in the 20th century music to find an entire piece that uses only a single scale. The music simply wonders around different scales and tonalities. In many cases a complete scale is even not present but only a fraction of it may imply that it is a specific scale. You can consider scales as a useful tool to start of writing some themes and motives. By no means scales should limit your melodic imagination.
Pentatonic Scale (Five-note)
Pentatonic is a general name used for all five note scales. But
the pentatonic scale is usually is the one shown on the following example. The pentatonic scale is often used to give an oriental flavor to a passage, but it certainly occurs elsewhere, particularly in folk melodies and children's songs.
The pentatonic scale is a limited source of melodic pitch material and also limited in its tertian harmonies. Meaning the chords built up using the scale sounds. The only possible triads are C and A and a minor 7th chord on A.
Whole-Tone Scale (Six-note)
This scale is constructed entirely of major 2nds. There are only two possible whole tone scales. Any other transposition will simply duplicate the two scales. The whole tone scale was popularized with the impressionism era, especially with Debussy. There are no major or minor chords are available with this scale and there is only one 7th chord available which is the dominant 7th with the 5th lowered or raised.
(We will get back to chords later)
Diatonic Modes (Seven-note)
Modes should be a chapter of their own but I am not planning to work on scales in depth so I am just going to pass through quickly. I believe that you already know the modes. (If you are not sure that you know everything about the modes I will add some more information here)
Octatonic Scale (Eight-note)
Also called the diminished scale, is a scale constructed of alternating minor and major 2nds. There are only two modes to this scale; one beginning with a major 2nd and the other with minor 2nd. The octatonic scale is a rich source of melodic material. It contains a vast amount of intervals; from minor seconds to major 7ths. Like the whole tone scale, it is difficult to establish a tonal center using the octatonic scale.
Other Possibilities
It would not be correct to tell you that I have discussed all the possible scales. Composers have always been in constant search for new possibilities. There are other scales which have been used extensively in 20th century music which is impossible to omit, chromatic scale, for example, had a huge popularity with the introduction of serialism. But I don't want to get into 12tone rows here. microtonal scale (using intervals smaller than minor second) is also another possibility.
EXERCISE 1
-Using pentatonic, whole tone, octatonic, chromatic and a mode of your choice, write 5 separate melodies. So one melody using only pentatonic, another using only whole tone etc..
-Your themes should be no less then 2 bars and no longer than 5 (but I am flexible, if you got carried away, write longer)
-Each theme should be in contrasting character. One could be rhythmically intense motive and another one could be a long legato melody.
You have one week to work on this. I will be back here in a week. Meanwhile you can still ask me questions using this thread. Submit your homework in midi, finale or pdf. Whichever suits you. I don't use sibelius.
