The usual scales are the diatonic scales, which are heptatonic scales.  Heptatonic scales are scales that have seven pitches per octave.

Pentatonic scales have only five pitches per octave.  I am barely familiar with them, but they seem to be less conventional, less common, and less important.

Dorian, major, and minor are modes of diatonic scales. There are four other modes of diatonic scales.

In the context of diatonic scales:

Any minor scale is just a rotation of a major scale.  Consider the C-major scale:  CDEFGAB.  Rotate it by lopping AB off the back end and putting them in front to get the A-minor scale: ABCDEFG.

Similarly a Dorian scale is a rotation of a major scale.  Starting with the C-major scale, you can take the C off the front and put it at the back to get DEFGABC, and that is the D-Dorian scale.  It is also (confusingly) called the D-minor Dorian scale.

All seven modes of diatonic scales are rotations of the major-mode scale.

Another example, starting with the D-major scale: DEF#GABC#.  Cut BC# off the back and put it at the front to get BC#DEF#GA---the B-minor scale.  Or cut D off the front and put it at the back to get EF#GABC#D---the E-Dorian scale.

Think rotation.  The amount of rotation is the mode.

See https://fiddlerman.com/forum/l.....ian-scale/ for more explanations including my analogy of a clock.

picklefish said
@ Rosinedup- thanks, I wasnt trying to correct but had not heard of that before. Im not a scales guy, nor do I pretend to understand all the ins outs and modes. It makes my brain hurt so I am taking it slowly. Ive almost got the easiest 7 maj scales down, the 5 harder ones left. Almost like being back in school.

Does 2212221 mean anything to you?  If not, you are due for an easy theoretical breakthrough with your scales.  Actually getting your left fingers to do the work is something else though.

TerryT said
A

RosinedUp said

picklefish said
@ Rosinedup- thanks, I wasnt trying to correct but had not heard of that before. Im not a scales guy, nor do I pretend to understand all the ins outs and modes. It makes my brain hurt so I am taking it slowly. Ive almost got the easiest 7 maj scales down, the 5 harder ones left. Almost like being back in school.

 

Does 2212221 mean anything to you?  If not, you are due for an easy theoretical breakthrough with your scales.  Actually getting your left fingers to do the work is something else though.

aha! 1 is 'close' and 2 = gap. Makes it easy to play any major scale, whichever finger you start with, follow that pattern and you have a major scale.
Is it ? Tone tone semitone tone tone tone semitone?

A+ for you, Terry. 

Right-rotate by 2 to get the minor mode: 2122122.

Left-rotate by 1 to get the Dorian mode: _______ (fill in the blank).

RosinedUp said

picklefish said
@ Rosinedup- thanks, I wasnt trying to correct but had not heard of that before. Im not a scales guy, nor do I pretend to understand all the ins outs and modes. It makes my brain hurt so I am taking it slowly. Ive almost got the easiest 7 maj scales down, the 5 harder ones left. Almost like being back in school.

 

Does 2212221 mean anything to you?  If not, you are due for an easy theoretical breakthrough with your scales.  Actually getting your left fingers to do the work is something else though.

@Picklefish: with 7 you're doing much better than me. I don't think I even got one down yet.

@RosinedUp: I love your explanation of "All seven modes of diatonic scales are rotations of the major mode". It's so simple and I know....I need to learn them and I am willing to. It's just they don't like me at all.

@TerryT and everyone: please let me participate in the pentatonic scale...things as it's my observation/thinking/question over the years.

Oh, forgot about the disclaimer. Here it is, "if your dogs and cats don't like you as much or your violins are out of tune after reading this then it's not my fault", and let me borrow yours, Daniel. For those of you who drink coffee, please make a fresh pot for easier digestion of whatever you drink or eat.

My beloved father taught me how to play mandolin when I was 9 or 10, and he is my first official music teacher, albeit just a few basic lessons of reading notes, playing beat and fingering. Well, that were all the poor old man knew anyway, but it's so luxurious in a very small village where people labored hard for basic living essentials. Later on, in college in US, I had opportunity to take piano classes studying western classical musics, fulfilling my musical dream. In short, I came from the equal tempered music scale school as most of you here (equal tempered scale, about 17th century/baroque music/JS Bach).

When I was working on completing my degree (too bad, it's in engineering, not music as it doesn't like me at all) I met a music professor who privately taught me traditional Vietnamese music and instrumental base on its various pentatonic scales.

Sorry for the long introduction. Back to the traditional music, it has several pentatonic scales (yes, about 6, 7 or more different scales per octave, employed different pitches among the notes for various moods/airs/feelings, all non-tempered scales, and for easier tuning/learning there is a chromatic tuner to register deviation in cents from western-scale notes). Of course, for the purpose of fair comparison/observation between itself and western equal tempered scale, in this context onward, the tonic "note" is always at exactly the same pitch (in some music cultures and notation, there are different names for "notes" but it's referenced to the same thing).

My question was since ancient time, there are musics around the world from different cultures. Some cultures are even without written language, all spoken, left alone music notation, and we're here with the tempered scale, derived from a mathematical calculation formula. How did they come up with it, most are so beautiful and adorable with no math/no calculation/no formula? Human hearing? Is it possible?

To the trad music again, in those different scales, one thing I noticed was that there is always a "note" at 3 and 1/2 steps from the tonic existed, even with other notes  in different pitches as measured with the tuner (three and a half steps, Oh, Wow, isn't that the PERFECT FIFTH? Isn't it the one for our loved violin tuning system? and various instruments as well?) Was it a coincident? Or was it from human hearing somehow? Observation from some nature phenomenon?

I brought that to my professor and his reply was "it's very strange. Not only for this traditional music scales, but in other music cultures in the West and so many in the East, pentatonic or not, everyone has that "note" and tuned exactly the same" (he referred to the interval of 3 1/2 steps) and that was all. It still left me wonder but since he earned his Ph D from a very famed music school in France, I had nothing to say and that question was with me for 20+ years.

I am thankful for learning violin as there are many related subjects related to it that are interesting themselves. I think I got an answer just a few days ago while reading about violin and Celtic music from Ireland, Scotland and other countries and its influence as the root of American old traditional music. There is another pentatonic scale used in Celtic music and I posted a question about the tuning as some of the notes seem flat, 15-30 cents maybe, from our tuning, and that the reason for research.

What I read about that "strange note", the perfect fifth, was it is based on a "natural scale" in which every note is a part of the same harmonic series of the tonic, unlike in our tempered scale where only the tonic and its octave notes are in the series.

It's physics in string vibration (air column as in flute, pipe organ and others). It happens in nature and that is why human hearing picked it up without even rely on complex mathematical formula as we use science methods to decipher nature phenomenon.

The easiest frequency/pitch from the tonic that our hearing would pick up is the octave (double the frequency). In the natural scale it's denoted as 2/1, 4/1 and so on with 1/1 being the tonic (the scale is denoted as integer ratios of the tonic frequency, the smaller number the easier recognition). The next most important interval to our hearing/brain is the simple 3/2, and in nature, in a string vibration that is 3/4 of the physical distance (there is an instrument in Vietnam called monochord, for having only one string, which plays with the harmonics/overtone only, and the primary frequency/pitch is dampened/minimized using a special plugging technique and it relied heavily on correctly touching those natural harmonics physical points for making sounds . If you play natural harmonics on violin, 1/2 distance of the string (divide string length in half physically, with a light finger touch at that point) would give an octave above the open string. Assumed the tonic/open string is C then that is the C one octave above. So half of the 3/2? That is 3/4 of the length (you can check this for yourself) will yield the G note. C to G, the perfect fifth, the interval used for tuning many instruments, and also the most important/recognized  interval to our hearing which has a root in nature phenomenon. No wonder why so many cultures has that "strange note".

About the pentatonic, it's also the simple form/structure of note/pitch from that natural octave scale.

I'm so sorry if you're reading this far, because I can't no longer bear this anymore.

Best Regards everyone,

Robert

DanielB said
Great stuff, ratvn.

Monochords are actually played as an instrument in Vietnam?  I never knew that.  They've been used in western music over the centuries for studying harmonics and scales, but I didn't know anyone anywhere actually plays them.

I made one back in college when I was taking theory.  Just a board, a single guitar tuning machine, a guitar string, part of a yardstick, and some small bits of wood and a few nails and some glue.  Neat little toy for studying harmonics and scales.  I copied the open string length and etc off my main guitar of that time.  It was good for taking the concepts in the textbooks and turning them into something that could be seen, touched, measured, and heard.

Yes, Daniel. It was evolved from an ancient instrument and is constructed very similar to yours. It was not very popular until recent due to being so soft/subtle (with the primary muted) so amplification is a must, and yes, they put a guitar pickup in it. Wow, I did not know that the West and East meet at some point. If the violin is regarded as the Queen of western classical music then that monochord is the king of the Vietnamese instruments since it sounds very beautifully, very close to human voice/spoken language, being all harmonics/overtones (mostly as the primary/fundamental sound/frequency is heavily suppressed/muted with its special playing technique). And the previous mentioned different pentatonic scales (Vietnamese music are actually employed 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 note scale per octave, but 5/pentatonic is more common) are actually evolved from different language dialects of various region in the country as the musics/instruments mimic human voice/language. Since there is no official written language (all spoken, so instrument/music learning was passed down face to face) until just a few hundred years ago, the monochord is played in natural scales (the physical points along the string which produce natural harmonics as defined by string length divided by an integer number). If you like to, I have one of those with beautiful mother of pearl inlay all around, water-buffalo horn stick, maybe I can post a picture, perhaps.

Yes, I know, I got distracted too. Need to focus in practicing.

I like to post a link to a person who play the instrument in a tune that you can recognize. Not very good playing as his intonation is far from perfect, and using tempered scale limits the instrument capability, but it's something maybe interesting to you to know (BTW, he is not quite familiar with/using those mentioned scales effectively as he is from a different region of the country).

Best wishes,

Robert