this video is sponsored by Dashlane!
hey, welcome to 12tone! as a music theorist,
one of my favorite theory games is a thing
I like to call the Random Scale Challenge,
where I take a completely random scale that,
as far as I know, no one's ever actually used,
and see what sorts of music you could make
with it if you did.
I've done it a couple times already on the
channel, link to that playlist in the description,
and today I thought it'd be fun to revisit
with a brand new scale.
so which one are we looking at today?
(bang) sweet.
let's go.
(tick, tick, tick, tick, tock)
before we get started, a brief note on the
rules.
in the past, what I've done is generate a
random set of 5 to 9 notes and then check
it on one of my favorite websites, Ian Ring's
A Study Of Scales, to see if it has a name
there.
Ring's list is pretty thorough, so if he hasn't
named it then I'll assume it's not in use.
I'm still basically doing that, but there's
a slight problem: since the last time I made
one of these videos, Ring updated his website.
It's a gorgeous rework, with a whole bunch
of new information and some awesome graphics:
if you like scale theory I can't recommend
it enough.
he even included the names I made up for the
previous scales in this series! but it does
complicate our mission because one of the
things he added was the Zeitler names.
ok, quick bonus lesson: in 2005, a theorist
named William Zeitler decided he was gonna
name all the scales.
like, all of them.
he just published a list with a unique name
for every possible scale in standard Western
tuning.
why?
well, the way he explains it, he felt like
we weren't being adventurous enough in our
musical choices, and since humans have a tendency
to view things as more "real" if we can call
them something, Zeitler felt that naming all
the scales would encourage people to write
with more of them.
and I can respect that: it's a pretty similar
goal to the one I have with this series.
still, this means that most collections of
notes, or at least most of the ones in standard
Western tuning, already have Zeitler names,
but those names don't really indicate any
actual use, so while I support what Zeitler
was trying to do, for the purposes of this
project, I'm gonna be ignoring his names.
or at least I'm not gonna let them stop me,
but honestly, they could be helpful.
like, let's take a look at our scale: (bang)
Zeitler calls this Phragian, which sounds
a lot like the name of a fairly well-known
scale called Phrygian.
(bang) so is there a connection or is this
just a weird phonetic coincidence?
well, no, there's definitely something going
on here, and to see what we have to talk about
tetrachords.
tetrachord analysis is basically just the
process of splitting the scale in two, treating
the top half and the bottom half as, like,
two mini-scales that combine to form the whole
thing.
if we apply this to our new scale, we see
the top half is 5, b6, b7, and the octave,
which is the same as the top half of Phrygian.
in fact, this shape is called the phrygian
tetrachord, because both the upper and lower
tetrachords of phrygian follow this pattern.
now, I have no idea how Zeitler went about
naming his scales so I don't know if he noticed
this tetrachord or if he just got lucky, but
either way, it's interesting to see.
the lower tetrachord, though, is a bit more
complicated.
once again, we've got both a minor second
and a major second.
I swear, this happens every time I do one
of these videos.
I don't know why.
anyway, opening the scale with two consecutive
half-steps creates a sort of artificially
slow start if your melody walks through both
of them, and you can also just play one or
the other depending on the mood you want to
create at the moment.
you can even switch back and forth between
them (bang) letting you change the emotional
color mid-phrase.
this tight grouping is balanced out further
up by the lack of 4th: we go straight from
the major 3rd up to the perfect 5th. the perfect
4th is an important driver of tension in traditional
harmony, so missing it means we're gonna have
to find our instability elsewhere.
which brings me to the harmony.
the first thing I notice here is that we've
got a major I chord and a minor V chord, which
is always a pretty fun vamp. the major I brings
a sense of brightness and calm, and the minor
V lacks the directionality of its major cousin,
so you get this kinda cheery, kinda melancholy
pad that doesn't feel like it needs to go
much of anywhere but still seems like it's
moving.
beyond those, though, chords get pretty hard
to find.
the only other consonant triad is the bII
minor, which gives us access to a technique
called a slide, where you go back and forth
between a major triad and a minor triad that
share the same 3rd. it's a pretty jarring
sound, because we're not really used to different
chords in the same scale sharing a degree
like that, but if you're looking to grab your
listener's attention the slide is a pretty
good way to do it.
from there, we have to expand our search to
more exotic chords, and this scale has two
of my favorites: there's an augmented triad
built on the root, and a diminished 7th built
on the 5th. or, I say they're built on those
notes, but really, both of these chords are
fully symmetrical, which means they're the
same interval from bottom to top, so really
any of their notes could just as easily be
the root. if the scale has E augmented, it
also has G# augmented and C augmented, because
all three of those are built the exact same
way, and in a similar fashion the scale actually
has four different diminished 7ths, it's just
they all use the same notes too.
interestingly, these two symmetrical chords
intersect: both of them contain the major
3rd, so we can build either one off that note,
and we can even switch back and forth between
them there if we want to.
(bang) this lets us juxtapose two very different
kinds of dissonance: the augmented triad is
more static, while the diminished 7th wants
to collapse.
but let's talk functions.
I think the augmented triad is gonna be a
pretty good replacement for our missing 4th
degree: the point of the IV chord is to add
instability without really pointing anywhere,
which is exactly what augmented triads do.
it also contains the root of the key, which
helps contribute to that lack of directionality:
we're already home, we're just not actually
stable.
normally, in the IV chord, the 4th degree
hangs over the implied 3rd of the key, and
we get a similar effect in our augmented triad
with the b6 hanging above the implied 5. it's
obviously not gonna be exactly the same, but
if we're trying to create that sort of motion,
I think this is the way to do it.
the diminished 7th, on the other hand, is
probably best used for setting up the V chord
through what's called a common tone resolution.
basically, if we build it off the 5th, we
get B diminished 7, and we can sort of resolve
that to B minor by keeping the B and D the
same and then collapsing the F and G# together
to form an F#. you can also set up the bII
chord the same way, and you can even use the
diminished 7th as a way to transfer between
your two minor chords: you hit V minor, do
a reverse common-tone resolution into the
diminished 7th, then resolve out of it into
bII. this is why I love symmetrical chords:
being more than one chord at the same time
opens up lots of really cool transformations.
but ok, I've been putting it off long enough,
let's address the elephant in the room: this
scale has a major 3rd and a minor 7th, which
makes it what's called a dominant scale.
this just means you can build a dominant 7th
chord off the root.
dominant chords tend to be the most dissonant
part of a harmony, so when you're soloing,
they're a great place to experiment with clever
new ideas, making dominant scales pretty exciting
for improvisers.
that said, I don't want to dwell on this point
for too long because, somehow, this is the
3rd time one of these videos has given me
a dominant scale.
I don't know how that keeps happening.
only about a quarter of all 7-note scales
are dominant, but every 7-note scale I've
found has been.
I don't think it's a flaw in my methodology,
especially since I've changed how I generate
the scales a couple times now.
I think I'm just unlucky. or lucky?
I don't know.
anyway, don't get me wrong, dominant scales
are great and finding new ones is always fun,
it's just I think I might be cursed.
anyway, that's my observations on the scale,
but we've still got a couple steps left.
first off, we've got to name it.
I mean, sure, we could stick with Zeitler's
name, but again, that's basically just a random
collection of syllables and it doesn't really
indicate the scale's been used, so I think
we can do better.
my current tradition is to name these new
scales after my friends, so I'm gonna call
this one the Astrocyte Scale, after Alie Astrocyte
from the YouTube channel NeuroTransmissions,
where she talks all about neuroscience and
the study of the human brain.
there's a link to her channel in the description,
and I can't recommend it enough.
plus she just finished her PhD, so I think
she deserves her own scale.
and now that we have a name, all that's left
is to write some music with it.
the thing that most inspired me was, ironically,
the lack of good harmonic options: we've only
got a few chords and they're kind of awkwardly
spaced, so I wanted to use them sparingly
and let the melody tie them together.
I'm always a sucker for trills, so I started
working from that, adding in chords where
I could in order to compliment it, and wound
up with this: (bang) but as always, this isn't
just about me: you can write music with the
Astrocyte Scale too! just like last time,
you can send them to me on twitter @12tonevideos
and I'll be keeping a master thread of all
the compositions I get, so even if you don't
feel like writing something yourself, you
can still check out what other people have
done.
trust me, every time I do this I get some
amazing stuff back, and I'm sure this time
will be no different.
but if you want to send me a tweet you'll
have to log into twitter first, which means
you could probably use some help from Dashlane.
I don't know about you, but forgetting passwords
has always been a problem for me: I'd sign
up for a site, use it once, and then next
time I came back I'd have to just reset my
password 'cause I couldn't remember exactly
what I put.
the only way around that was to use the same
easy-to-remember passwords over and over,
which is a huge security risk, so now I use
Dashlane's password manager instead.
it not only remembers my passwords for me,
it also generates super strong ones, and all
I need to do is remember my master password.
plus, Dashlane comes with a bunch of other
security services, including a VPN to prevent
you from being tracked online, and dark web
monitoring so if your password gets leaked
in a data breach they'll notify you and you
can change it before you actually get hacked.
if that sounds good, you can try Dashlane
free for 30 days with the link in the description,
and if you like it and want to keep going,
don't forget to use the coupon code 12tone
for an additional 10% off!
and hey, thanks for watching, and thanks to
our Patreon patrons for making these videos
possible! if you want to help out, and get
some sweet perks like sneak peeks of upcoming
episodes, there's a link to our Patreon on
screen now.
you can also join our mailing list to find
out about new episodes, like, share, comment,
subscribe, and above all, keep on rockin'!
