Unusual Scales. Help

This may help - tons of different scales including Eastern/Arabian/asian

http://www.all-guitar-chords.com/guitar_scales.php?qqq=2&scch=C&scchnam=Arabian+%28a%29&get2=Get


Edited by Hierophant - May 26 2006 at 05:14

Got to:

Interesting sites - they look useful for learning scales, but I take my usual issue with the use (or abuse) of the word "tone".

For example, the "Spanish 8-tone" scale does not have 8 tones in it - it has 8 notes, so should be called "Spanish 8-note" scale.

So there

MikeEnRegalia wrote: Certif1ed wrote: Interesting sites - they look useful for learning scales, but I take my usual issue with the use (or abuse) of the word "tone". For example, the "Spanish 8-tone" scale does not have 8 tones in it - it has 8 notes, so should be called "Spanish 8-note" scale. So there is it really "note"? I mean, it's also "semi-tone", isn't it?

But there aren't 8 semi-tones in the scale are there?


The correct word is clearly note - a scale has notes in it, which can be tones or semitones.

A tone is either a measurement of pitch between adjacent notes or it is the name given to the sound produced by an instrument at a given pitch with a specific timbre - the quality of the note, if you like.

It is not the same thing as the note itself, which is what some misguided schools teach.

That latter explains a lot about some of our past exchanges... I'll bear that in mind!

But I don't see what's wrong with that particular part of that Wikipedia page. It uses the terms tone and semitone correctly and even makes a differentiation between them and notes.

Maybe it's because it's late at night - what do you see as the error(s)?

MikeEnRegalia wrote: ^ I don't see an error - didn't you say that semitone is wrong and should be called seminote instead?

    

No - I said no such thing.

Please read what I write before replying, Mike, and you'll save a lot of time, misunderstanding and forum space.

Seems clear enough to me - what's so difficult?


Let's ask a simple question to illustrate:

Are there 8 tones in the scale?


Answer: No there are not. Some intervals are semitones.


Therefore there are 8 notes, not tones in the scale, since intervals between notes may be either tones or semitones.


I'm very curious as to how you can deduce that the sentence reads "semitone is wrong and should be called seminote instead" - as you put it.


I said, as you quoted: "For example, the "Spanish 8-tone" scale does not have 8 tones in it - it has 8 notes, so should be called "Spanish 8-note" scale."


I just don't see how you misunderstood that - except, maybe, with your German use of "Ton" to mean note.

In English, Tone is a property of Note (or notes). Note is a symbolic concept while tone (and by obvious implication, semitone) is a more specific entity.


    

Edited by Certif1ed - May 30 2006 at 04:21

Certif1ed wrote: I just don't see how you misunderstood that - except, maybe, with your German use of "Ton" to mean note.

I *never* said that. The German word "Ton" means "tone", the word "Note" means "note". Please read my posts as carefully as you want me to read your posts.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: Mark, it's perfectly simple: A scale has nothing to do with notes (or notation for that matter). It might be illustrated by means of notation (e.g. a transcription of somebody playing the scale) though. But it can be described more purely by a list of intervals. A scale does not consist of tones or semitones or notes. A scale consists of a number of steps with certain intervals between them, which are called semitones and (whole)tones ... and possibly even larger intervals (dominant scales, harmonic minor etc.).

    

Mike, you're confusing matters - please allow me to clarify. Here are the basics:


A scale is made up of notes - it has everything to do with notes. Without notes, there is no scale. Without notes, there is no music. Notes are like letters in words.


Notation uses symbols called "notes" to convey the notes that are played to form the scale.

The term "note" also means a musical sound at a pitch - but parameters such as duration, timbre and so on are not defined. Once the note is performed, the note acquires these attributes - and hence a tone - and I think this is where you're getting confused, because the term "note" doesn't have one single meaning.


A scale, in Western notation, consists of steps which may be semitones, tones or multiples of these. The semitone is traditionally the smallest step between notes in Western music - but not in many Eastern musical philosophies, and so Western music has come to adopt fractions of tones as steps in its scales too in cases where the instrument can handle it (or at least, some composers of Western Music have used fractions of tones in their compositions).

You can say a scale has steps - but so does my landing!

Each step is a note, and each note bears a relation to both its predecessor and its successor by a tone or fraction or multiple thereof. This step is also known as an interval - but in the context of a scale, we tend to use the "tone" teminology instead of minor second, major second and so on. It's a convention.

------------------------------------------------------


Put very simply, a scale is made up of notes that are semitones, tones or possibly greater intervals apart. If the intervals are consistently greater than a tone and a half, we typically refer to the result as an arpeggio, or broken chord. Typically, a scale will begin on a named note and end on a note an octave higher.


Your last point completely contradicts your second point - so it is obvious to me that you don't really understand scales. I hope the above has clarified this for you.

And as for your response about me reading your posts carefully, that nearly made me laugh - it was supposed to be funny, right?


Could you also explain how the phrase "An 8 tone scale should properly be called an 8 note scale" can be interpreted as "semitones should be called seminotes"?

That is truly baffling.


Thanks.
    
    
I also think that such a rudimentary discussion should occur elsewhere, as the original discussion was about advanced scales - not the very basics.    
    
    
    
    

Edited by Certif1ed - May 30 2006 at 08:56

MikeEnRegalia wrote: Certif1ed wrote: Put very simply, a scale is made up of notes that are semitones, tones or possibly greater intervals apart I agree with that - and it's not put "simply" but "clearly". Let's leave it at that - I understand what you said about the different meanings of "note", and I also agree with that.Getting back to the "unusual" scales ... it should be pointed out that even the most usual unusual scale , harmonic minor, involves a minor third, which is not a multiple of a tone or semitone (rather: the sum of those two).

    
Indeed - when describing a scale, we call it "a tone and a half" .