Synthetic Tonalities

Hi,

I used to work with synthetic scales and was curious if anybody else had tried this method as a way of keeping a tonal center to ones work. I've seen the many threads on here on common practice tonality (chuckled at quite a few actually) and while currently I use major/minor key signatures, to me the myriad of rules and stipulations is quite a roadblock in finishing works - as well as basic compositional ideas. My teachers in college sped through the in-depth theory of common practice music BUT did teach the more modern approaches in depth. One teacher even said cp was dead.

I'd be interested in hearing your opinions.

...I'm curious: what do you mean by a "synthetic" scale?

He means something not naturally found as part of a major or minor scale.

I.e.

Whole Tone

1/2-Whole Diminshed.

I have, actually :) If you look in the Choral Works for Blago Bung; that's done with a number of synthetic scales. (here it is http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/blago-bung-blago-bung-bosso-fataka-15824.html)

Now they're not established ones like the ones Robin mentioned, but asserted note collections.

Please, though, let's not talk about how "CP" is dead, there's way too many threads on that already :)

I have, actually :) If you look in the Choral Works for Blago Bung; that's done with a number of synthetic scales. (here it is http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/blago-bung-blago-bung-bosso-fataka-15824.html)

Now they're not established ones like the ones Robin mentioned, but asserted note collections.

Please, though, let's not talk about how "CP" is dead, there's way too many threads on that already :)

Nah, I'd rather not have a full on discussion on CP... I just mentioned it in passing (for a lil background on my query).

I hate these tonality discussions, but I'm curious: what do you mean by a "synthetic" scale?

A synthetic scale, as it was explained to me, is a scale that uses intervallic relations not found in the 'traditional' context. A whole tone scale, 1/2 dimished, variants of the phrygian modes, etc... would all fall under that description.